society

STROKE ME, I'M A PRIMATE

Evgeny Morozov — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:37:43 +0000

I PROMISE NOT TO SUE

In a second report from the Pop!Tech 2007 conference in Maine, Evgeny Morozov discovers that after 40 million years of evolution we should be more enthusiastic about touching each other in public ...

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DANGER: RICHES AHEAD

Robert Cottrell — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 23:12:30 +0000

WHAT YOUR MONEY MAY DO TO YOUR CHILD

Virgina Woolf thought that an independent woman needed a modest private income and a room of her own. Emma Duncan asks present-day heirs and experts about inherited wealth, and finds that they set the bar a bit higher ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, September 2007 read more »

INSIDE BILL CLINTON'S SHWAG-BAG

Robert Cottrell — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:32:35 +0000

A DAY AT THE CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran of The Economist chaired a climate-change panel at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York on Thursday. His reward, he writes here, was an overflowing gift bag--and a restored faith in going green ...

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WAKE UP AND SMELL THE EXHAUST PIPE

Robert Cottrell — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:24:14 +0000

WE CAN SOLVE THIS ENERGY MESS

In this third and final extract from their new book, "Zoom", Iain Carson and Vijay Vaitheeswaran of The Economist propose five principles for a fairer energy policy and a cleaner world ...

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DRIVING WHILE DELUDED

Robert Cottrell — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:44:45 +0000

THE CHEAPEST LIQUID IN THE FILLING STATION IS STILL PETROL

In this second extract from "Zoom", their forthcoming book about the next revolution in cars and fuel, Iain Carson and Vijay Vaitheeswaran look at the hidden subsidies which keep American petrol prices down, and crowd out cleaner fuels...

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NEWS FROM THE UPPER CLASSES

Anthony Gottlieb — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:42:17 +0000

WHATEVER WOULD P.G. WODEHOUSE HAVE SAID?

Anthony Gottlieb, who wrote on hedonism in this month's Intelligent Life magazine, enjoys an obituary but wonders whether "Wodehouseian" is quite the word for an English aristocrat who lived neither wisely nor well ...

From our arts blog, MOREOVER

THE justly famous obituaries published in Britain’s Daily Telegraph--of which there are several anthologies, including volumes devoted to “Rogues”, “Eccentric Lives” and “Heroes and Adventurers”--regularly celebrate the lives of those who seem to have inhabited worlds that vanished long before they vanished themselves. Last week’s tribute, if that is the word, to Lord Michael Pratt, described him as “one of the last Wodehouseian figures to inhabit London's clubland”, and noted that “he will also be remembered as an unabashed snob and social interloper on a grand scale.”

The epithet “Wodehousian” is raising eyebrows, in this online newsgroup and perhaps in the more literary corners of clubland itself. The Telegraph reported that the late Lord Michael was ejected from a London club (ironically, it is called “Pratt’s”) following “a spectacular altercation with a waitress.” Do the sunny novels of P.G. Wodehouse--home to Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, the gentle Lord Emsworth and his prize pig--really have room for such an unpleasant character? Actually, yes. read more »

ADVENTURES IN ALTERITY

Robert Cottrell — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:38:41 +0000

GOD, SEX AND OTHER PEOPLE

A short history of "Otherness"--an invaluable concept if you find yourself struggling to make small talk on the academic conference circuit. By Philip Davis, a professor of English literature at Liverpool University, and editor of the Reader magazine...

From our arts blog, MOREOVER

The academic conference season is ending here in England. If you ever have the misfortune to find yourself in such a setting, you only need one word to get by. The word is "Otherness", and it has been in tarnished vogue for some time now. If you are feeling really out of place, then try saying "Alterity" as well. Means the same, sounds even better. You sit in a conference room and you hear so many of these notional terms replacing the reality they purport to describe.

I was brought up in Nottingham, home of D.H. Lawrence, in the English Midlands. When I was a boy, I am afraid that "the Other", in crude slang, meant Sexual Intercourse. As in: "I fancy a bit of the other."

When I next came across the word, at university in Cambridge, it meant God. God was the Other, utterly beyond any anthropomorphic terms of understanding. Anything you can say about God, said the 14th-century mystic Meister Eckhart, is untrue.
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DON'T FIGHT ROOM TEMPERATURE

Robert Cottrell — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:32:56 +0000

WHAT'S IN YOUR FRIDGE DOES NOT NEED TO BE THERE

Can you live in a city, without a refrigerator? Some green pioneers think so, and have been blogging their progress, reports Robert Butler, in an extract from his article in the current issue of Intelligent Life magazine ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, September 2007 read more »

A PRACTITIONER'S GUIDE TO HEDONISM

Robert Cottrell — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:50:03 +0000

THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE IS A COMPLICATED BUSINESS

The Greek philosopher Epicurus has been a victim of muck-raking and slander for more than two thousand years. Anthony Gottlieb sets the record straight, and resurrects some ancient advice on the good life ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, September 2007

WHERE IS is a hedonist to look for his heroes? Not to the religious traditions of the East, to be sure: they lack enthusiasm for the illusory pleasures of this world. The Buddha may have rejected the stony path of asceticism, but he was keener on eliminating desires than on satisfying them. Islam and Christianity are not much help either. They are more interested in pleasing God than in pleasing man. Judaism has managed a happier compromise with the ways of the world. Yet it too, like the other monotheisms, keeps a wary eye open for recriminations from above.

None of the greatest Western philosophers has produced a paean to pleasure that can serve as much of a guide for today’s enlightened hedonist. Philosophers tend to be ruminative, cerebral and cautious. To expect to find a hedonist at work in the groves of academe is rather like expecting to find a vegetarian at work in a slaughter-house.

Thus Kant preached a stern gospel of dutifulness, and Plato’s pleasures were unstintingly abstract and intellectual. A good Platonist would rather contemplate the perfect meal than eat it.
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