There are decades where nothing happens’, said Vladimir Illyich Lenin, ’and there are weeks where decades happen’.
Clearly, we’re in one of those moments where a lot happens quickly, where old systems are breaking down, empires are tottering, and new ways are emerging bawling from the womb.
This decade will be the most disruptive of any in human history, according to a book I read this week called Rethinking Humanity, from the think-tank RethinkX.
Read MoreThe first part of this essay looked at the first and second wave of Malthusian thinking, in the 19th and early 20th centuries respectively. This second part will look at the third and fourth wave.
Read MoreTwo visions of the future were unfurled this month. The first was a study from the University of Washington, which showed population was in rapid decline in many countries of the world. The authors suggested world population would peak at around 9 billion, sooner than the UN had predicted. The decline in national populations could, the authors suggested, even lead to nations competing for immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa to supply the work-force for their countries. It follows comments by Elon Musk last year that the biggest global issue in 20 years will be ‘population collapse’.
Read MoreI’ve always been fascinated by the story of Biosphere 2. In the late 1980s, an avant-garde group of actors and scientists erected a gigantic geodesic dome in the Arizona desert, to see if humans could live in ‘space colonies’ that generate their own food, water and oxygen.
I knew that the experiment had gone wrong, but that was all. I was surprised no one had made a film or book about such an evocative subject. Well, now they have. Matt Wolf’s new documentary Spaceship Earth landed last month and can be viewed online.
Read MoreIn 1992 - almost 30 years ago - James Hillman laid down a stinging critique of therapy culture, arguing it was turning us inwards while the ecology was falling apart. He called for a more revolutionary psychology that challenges our model of the self and re-connects us to the soul of things.
Read MoreOne of the figures in the controversial Tube protest by Extinction Rebellion is a Buddhist teacher who has embraced a new form of revolutionary Buddhism put forward by Rob Burbea. The blowback from the protest show the limits of this philosophy in practical terms.
Read MoreIf you’re in one of those moments where it feels like gravity has increased and the universe is taking a dump on you, here are my three best techniques for getting yourself through difficult times.
Read MoreDo we have the right to bring children into what could be a pretty unpleasant historical situation?
Read MoreThe finale of Game of Thones has been attacked by a flock of angry nerds, while the Avengers climax left them in a warm post-coital glow. But here’s why the GOT finale is actually a lot more interesting for our times.
Read MoreRowan Williams on the role that mysticism and spirituality can play in helping us confront the systematic unreality of our economic and cultural system.
Read MoreYou could accuse XR of being a form of therapy for the middle-classes. Like a cancer support group in the middle of Oxford Circus. But the cancer is not terminal yet. This is an alarm bell, a scream.
Read MoreI met a futurist the other day. A traveller from a future land. We both gave keynotes at a conference on education. I sat next to him at dinner afterwards and asked him a bit about the futurism business, including what he charged for talks (I’m shameless). He shrugged. ’10, maybe 15’. ‘Pounds?’ ‘No…thousands’.
Read MoreThe closest I’ve come to enlightenment was the two minutes when I was lying in a bloody heap on Valsfjell Mountain in Norway. This was back in February 2001. While skiing down a steep slope, I crashed through a fence, flew off a cliff, and landed with a thump, breaking my leg and several vertebrae.
Read MoreLast week I came across a small book called The Making of a Counter Culture, written in 1969 by an American historian called Theodore Roszak. I loved it. Roszak was the first to coin the phrase ‘the counterculture’.
Read MoreWe’re so used to stories of snowflake students having meltdowns over Halloween costumes that it’s refreshing to remind ourselves they really can change the world for the better.
Read MoreI was walking to the Extinction Rebellion protest last weekend, and I suddenly started crying.
Read MoreApologies for the delay in writing. I’ve been in California for the last three weeks, immersed in preparing for Burning Man, then going to Burning Man, then recovering from Burning Man.
Read MoreThis is the best time ever to be alive and human. Global life expectancy has doubled in the last century, from 31 to 71. A century ago, 20% of babies died in childbirth, now it's less than 7%. You're far, far less likely to die violently than in the Middle Ages, the 19th century, or even in the 1960s.
Read MoreWisdom is a watering-hole at which animals of many different species can come and drink - as long as they don’t insist on trying to convert, denounce or attack each other, but instead meet in friendship and good humour.
Read MoreProfessor Nancy Sherman has worked with the US military for over 20 years, and has written several books on military ethics, including Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind; and The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds and Souls of Our Soldiers.
Read MoreI went to the book-launch of a new book on well-being policy yesterday, which brought together some leading figures in this nascent movement - including David Halpern of the government’s ‘nudge unit’, Canadian economist John Helliwell, psychologist Maurren O'Hara, and Juliet Michaelson of the new economics foundation.
Read MoreYesterday I finished a pilot course in practical philosophy at Low Moss prison. It’s an eight-session course that introduces people to the ideas and life-philosophies of various ancient philosophers, including Socrates, the Stoics, Plato, Rumi, the Buddha, Jesus and Lao Tzu. I've been running it in partnership with New College Lanarkshire, which runs the learning courses in west Scottish prisons.
Read MoreApologies for the lack of newsletters recently - I’ve been in the depths of a project to design and teach a course based on Philosophy for Life. This month, I started teaching it in three organizations - a mental health charity in London called Manor Gardens; Saracens rugby club; and Low Moss prison in Glasgow (via New College Lanarkshire, which runs learning courses there).
Read MoreThis year I got some funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to teach a course in practical philosophy with three partner organizations - Manor Gardens, a mental health charity in North London; Low Moss prison in Glasgow; and Saracens rugby club.
Read MoreWell, that was a weird year. 2013 was the year I became a Christian, or rather 'committed my life to Christ' as Christians put it. What does that mean? How did I get here? Am I really a Christian or am I kidding myself? Let's re-wind and play the tape again.
Read MoreI would love there to be more practical philosophy in schools. At the moment, the teaching of ethics and philosophy in schools and universities is almost entirely theoretical. Students learn that philosophy is a matter of understanding and disputing concepts and theories, something that only involves the intellect, not your emotions, actions or life outside of the classroom.
Read MoreI’ll admit it, I was slightly nervous. I’d been invited to give a philosophy workshop in HMP Dumfries, a prison in west Scotland. Plummy-voiced and puny-framed Englishman that I am, I wasn’t sure what they’d make of me. Mincemeat, maybe. Anyway, I figured it was a low-security prison, otherwise they wouldn’t be inviting philosophers to give workshops, right?
Read MoreSteven Pinker, the Harvard cognitive linguist, would not make a very good ambassador. In his latest diatribe, he attempts to reassure humanities scholars that science is not their enemy. Science is good, and humanities scholars should stop complaining about 'Scientism'. Unfortunately, he says this in such a tactless and, er, Scientistic way that it’s guaranteed to annoy not just humanities scholars, but no doubt many scientists too.
Read MoreI want to explore the idea of Greek philosophy as a meeting-point between various humanisms, including Christian humanism, atheist or agnostic humanism, Islamic humanism and Jewish humanism.
Read MoreI've a long article in Aeon magazine this week, looking at Improving Access for Psychological Therapy (IAPT), which is the first ever provision of talking therapy on a mass scale by a government. Before IAPT, the NHS spent just 3% of its mental health budget on talking therapy.
Read MoreI’m in Holland again, this time in Utrecht, where yesterday I did a three-hour workshop at the University of Humanistic Studies. It was gratifying to have lots of bright students scrutinising my ideas, though also grueling in so far as the students very intelligently saw the limitations of Stoic philosophy.
Read MoreThis is a weird time to be alive. To live now is to have the occasional consciousness that our planet is heading for a monumental shift in climate, which is likely to make existence much harder for billions of people in the future.
Read MoreHere's my AHRC report on grassroots philosophy via fancy 'turn the page' technology. Thanks for the QMUL creative services team for putting it together. Check it out!
We’re coming to the end of Stoic Week. People all over the world have been practicing Stoic exercises and reflecting on Stoic ideas this week, thanks to this wonderful initiative, launched by a young post-grad at Exeter University called Patrick Ussher. Some of Patrick’s students have been sharing their thoughts on the exercises via YouTube.
Read MoreBig day today. I’ve finally finished my report on grassroots philosophy groups, which you can download here: Connected Communities- Philosophical Communities.
Read MoreRick Lewis was working in the laboratory of British Telecom when he decided, just over 20 years ago, to launch a philosophy magazine for non-academics, called Philosophy Now. He tells me about the early days, how grassroots philosophy has grown, how he met his wife Anja Steinbauer, who runs Philosophy For All, and where he sees the 'movement' going.
Read MoreThere was an article in Morgenbladet, the Norwegian newspaper, on philosophy clubs last month. It's not online yet but here are two beautiful photos from the story. Both are by Ellen Lande Gossner - thanks to Ellen for letting me use these photos in my report on philosophy groups!
Read MoreI'm writing this from a cafe in Antwerp, at the end of my first mini book tour abroad, having spent the last week doing talks and interviews in Amsterdam and Antwerp. My Dutch publisher, Regine, has been putting a lot into the promotion here - there’s even going to be a poster campaign around the country.
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago I organized a seminar (my first!) at Queen Mary, University of London, in its beautiful Octagon Room, about community philosophy, bringing together 20 or so practitioners in the field, who had a combined experience of over three centuries in grassroots philosophy. Here are some videos from the seminar:
Read MoreThere's a new spirit of self-help and mutual improvement blowing through public health policy. I first felt its breeze in Scotland's national mental health strategy, which was published in August, and which made much of its 'person-centred approach' to mental health in Scotland.
Read Moreaul Doran is one of the founders of Philosophy in Pubs (PIPs), which is the biggest network of community philosophy groups in the UK, with around 40 PIPs across the UK, including 14 in Merseyside, where PIPs began. Here he talks about how PIPs started, how to run a PIPs group, and how he sees community philosophy developing in the future.
Read MoreRoman Krznaric is the author of two popular books that came out this year - The Wonderbox: Curious histories of how to live and How to Find Fulfilling Work - and is also one of the founding faculty members of the School of Life, which teaches the art of living to its clientele.
Read MoreHip hop and Philosophical Inquiry
Read MoreThe eagle-eyed among you will have noticed there was no newsletter last weekend. Apologies. The reason for this is I have journeyed deep into the warm, pulsating heart of the happiness movement.
Read MoreThere's a cognitive bias which supposedly causes emotional disorders, whereby you minimize your own achievements while maximizing those of other people. I feel the authors of Britannia Unchained, a new book about how to save the UK from national decline, suffer from this bias.
Read MoreAs regular readers know, I’m researching the rise of grassroots philosophy groups for a project called Philosophical Communities. This has got me thinking about the roles of groups and networks in the history of ideas, and I’d like to sketch out some initial thinking. I hope the following isn’t too pretentious...
Read MoreI was at a drinks party of a history conference this week, talking to a young academic who was writing a PhD. ‘And what are you working on?’ she asked me. I said I was researching philosophy groups, and was interested in the role of support groups and self-help networks in education and health.
Read MoreA few newsletters back, I talked about the idea of the ‘mass intelligentsia’, and posted an interview I did with Melvyn Bragg about the term (he used it in this programme on class and culture back in March). I’ve been digging into this idea a bit more since then, for an academic research project I’m doing on philosophy clubs. I’d like to unpack the idea some more, if that’s alright by you.
Read MoreHere is a great short vid by Leah Green, doing a broadcasting MA at Warwick, on the future of philosophy. It features Dr Angie Hobbs, and lots of members of the London Philosophy Club, including me looking a little bug-eyed. Must learn not to do that!
Read MoreThis week, I interviewed the philosopher and scientist Massimo Pigliucci as part of my research into philosophy clubs and the Skeptic movement. Massimo is a fascinating figure: he grew up in Italy, then moved to the University of Tennessee to become a professor in ecology and evolution, before moving to City University of New York to become a professor in philosophy.
Read MoreWelcome to another PoW newsletter. At the moment I am deep in research for a project I am running at Queen Mary, University of London, looking at the history and contemporary rise of philosophy groups. The hope is it will build links between academic philosophy and 'street philosophy', and also encourage people to get involved with grassroots philosophy, by joining clubs or setting up their own.
Read MoreMy city hosts the Olympics today, and I feel a bit anxious - like when you hear guests buzzing on the door bell, the house is a mess, and you've just had a raging argument with your wife. Well, I am very proud to be British, and proud to be a Londoner. I hope the games go really well and my fellow Londoners aren't too grumpy to the tourists.
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