“The awful shadow of some unseen Power/Floats though unseen amongst us. – visiting/This various world with as inconstant wing/As summer winds that creep from flower to flower. -/Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,/It visits with inconstant glance” From Hymn to Intellectual Beauty by Percy Bysshe Shelley Let’s be clear, we are not talking …
Category Archives: Political philosophy
From chaos to anarchy!
What is anarchy? We all know that the word anarchy is interchangeable with words like chaos or violence and bombs. But is this a fair interpretation of political anarchism? Obviously no. Sure, anarchists have often been associated with violence but equally anarchism itself has a long history of philosophy that acts as a powerful critique …
When did they become so cruel?
“Then you too can dance the dance of insanity, that halfway house between catatonia and drooping, a dance that is devoid of spirit but wears a fixed grin, a hollow mask that was one used in a carnival.” Ece Temelkuran. At the heart of Ece Temelkuran’s book How To Lose a Country is the claim …
What’s the point of ignorance?
“The philosopher is the shepherd who tends the mixed flock of the possible on the highlands…” Michael Serres. What’s the point of ignorance? Well, quite a lot as it turns out. We know that ignorance is everywhere. If we have a problem defining or describing English identity, then some might argue that a good place …
Is Liberalism dead? Was it ever alive?
“Taxation of earnings is on a par with forced labour.” Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State and Utopia. During a recent Salisbury Democracy Café the interesting question ‘Is Liberalism dead?’ was posed. Much depends on the definition of Liberalism. Some people seem to mean a rather wishy-washy tolerance epitomised by the pejorative term ‘bleeding heart liberal’. …
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