All entries by this author

Education and Inequality

Mar 9th, 2003 | By

Inequality is an old and vexed issue. Isaiah rebuked Israel for grinding the faces of the poor, Thersites got himself beaten up for complaining about Agamemnon, and so it has gone ever since. From Marx to Rawls to Michael Young, equality and meritocracy, justice and opportunity, class and race, money and taxes, jobs and immigration, education and tuition and top-up fees, have been debated and re-debated.

Education, especially higher education, is one area where tensions and disagreements about inequality play themselves out with extra passion. Many citizens, parents, students, employers, thinkers would like to see higher education available to more people and especially to a wider range of people: more women, more non-white people, more poor people. The difficulty is … Read the rest



Green Welly Image *

Mar 9th, 2003 | Filed by

The Independent on Bristol’s admissions policy.… Read the rest



Tinpot Trotskyists Running Bristol Admissions? *

Mar 9th, 2003 | Filed by

The Observer samples press coverage of the row over Bristol’s acceptance of lower marks for students from state schools.… Read the rest



Bristol University, social class and meritocracy *

Mar 9th, 2003 | Filed by

Can a university have too many well-off students?… Read the rest



I Win I Win

Mar 8th, 2003 8:37 pm | By

Sometimes I find myself in an odd sort of competition with friends from other countries, specifically the UK: we argue over which of us lives in the more anti-intellectual culture. I say I do, they say they do, and so we improve the shining hour.

But I have a nice little piece of evidence here. Specifically this remark:

One reason people trained as philosophers press so hard for academic jobs is that the United States offers few other opportunities to use their training. Television here, unlike its counterparts in Europe and Asia, almost completely ignores university and intellectual life. So do radio and print journalism, devoting far more airtime and space to sports.

I rest my case. Who can … Read the rest



Happiness and Positional Goods *

Mar 8th, 2003 | Filed by

If inequality makes the rich a little happier and the poor a lot more miserable, what then?… Read the rest



Dialogue *

Mar 8th, 2003 | Filed by

Two historians, one Tory one Labour, discuss Iraq and Tony Blair.… Read the rest



Nonsense, Mistakes, Barrel-Scraping Insults *

Mar 8th, 2003 | Filed by

Todd Gitlin demolishes Alston Chase’s anti-intellectual version of what made the Unabomber.… Read the rest



A Doomed Enterprise *

Mar 8th, 2003 | Filed by

John Haldane restates traditional view that religion is perfection of reason; Edward Skidelsky is not sure it can be done.… Read the rest



Unoriginal, and False *

Mar 7th, 2003 | Filed by

Colin McGinn disagrees with Damasio’s version of the James-Lange theory of emotion.… Read the rest



More a Meditation Than an Argument *

Mar 7th, 2003 | Filed by

Richard Sennett’s Respect ‘draws on fields normally guarded by specialists: urbanism, psychology, literature, architecture, the history of ideas’.… Read the rest



Two Books on Islam Reviewed in Dissent *

Mar 7th, 2003 | Filed by

One makes lucid distinctions, the other leaves too much out.… Read the rest



Oh dear, some journalists should only write about the Spice Girls…

Mar 7th, 2003 10:50 am | By

It is well-known that most journalists write mostly nonsense most of the time. Happily, this is normally about things like Posh Spice, the g-spot or Iraq. But Zoe Williams clearly has greater ambitions, for she writes nonsense about sociobiology.

This article is so bad that it is hard to know where to start when discussing it. Take this claim:

“There are logical problems with it which it doesn’t take a degree in zoology (even from Oregon) to determine. First, it relies, as so many of these theories do, on the egregious notion that, while women’s fertility is all downhill from the moment they start enjoying The Archers, men suffer no deterioration of sperm quality till they’re one day older … Read the rest



Born or Made? *

Mar 6th, 2003 | Filed by

Is gayness in the genes or in the will, and who thinks which, and why.… Read the rest



So Far So Good…Maybe *

Mar 6th, 2003 | Filed by

But what happens when the results are bad? When students mark teachers down for not being entertaining enough?… Read the rest



And He Wasn’t Even Cool *

Mar 5th, 2003 | Filed by

Sometimes a teacher can change lives.… Read the rest



Life Explained *

Mar 5th, 2003 | Filed by

ALDaily on Difference Feminism, or anyway on Difference.… Read the rest



A Bluffer’s Guide to Science Studies and the Sociology of “Knowledge”

Mar 5th, 2003 | By Robert Nola

Ever since science became a going concern in the ancient world, people have
asked: “What is this thing called science?” An early answer was given by Aristotle
in his Organon, its focus being largely on the logic and methodology
of scientific reasoning. Even if its substantive claims are now no longer central,
it inaugurated a tradition of philosophical thought about science that has had
wide acceptance by many scientists and philosophers; in their different ways
recent philosophers such as Carnap, Popper, Lakatos and the Bayesians are all
within this tradition. It involves belief in, and the application of, principles
of logic, methodology and of rationality generally; on the whole such principles
have been instrumental in leading scientists, if not … Read the rest



Navel Gazing Not the Answer?

Mar 4th, 2003 8:28 pm | By

The other article I had in mind was this one by Lauren Slater in the New York Times last weekend. It’s interesting that both articles express skepticism about the value, especially the curative or therapeutic value, of the talking cure and also of the intervention of therapists after traumatic events. At last! I’ve been rolling my eyes and making sarcastic remarks for years whenever a news story informs us that a plane crashed or a crazed gunman shot up a school/fast-food joint/post office or an earthquake leveled a town, and in the next breath added that ‘counselors are on the way’. As if that helps. As if we can all heave a big sigh of relief because at least professionals … Read the rest



When Therapy Isn’t

Mar 4th, 2003 7:04 pm | By

There have been a couple of interesting articles on therapy in the past two weeks, each taking a fairly skeptical view of the healing powers of the…discipline? field? trade? What is therapy really?

In this one in the CHE Carol Tavris elucidates the gulf between clinical psychology and therapy on the one hand, and scientific or research psychology on the other, pointing out a number of ironic and/or horrifying facts along the way. For instance there is the fact that in many of the United States it is against the law to call oneself a psychologist unless one ‘has an advanced degree in clinical psychology and a license to practice psychotherapy’ but it is entirely legal to set oneself up … Read the rest