Politics – Blogs Don't Burn

May 21, 2024

Our universities are failing to tackle student antisemitism

This OpEd was published in CapX on 21st May, 2024

Earlier this month, university leaders from around the country were summoned to Downing Street to discuss the recent explosion of antisemitism on UK campuses, which has been so extreme that the Community Security Trust (CST) labelled it a ‘watershed moment for antisemitism in the UK’.

Unfortunately, despite strong statements from the government that this newest revival of the world’s oldest hatred will not be tolerated, many of the solutions being proposed lack real teeth. If policymakers really want to make an impact on campus antisemitism, they should start naming and shaming those universities which are doing the least to address the crisis.

May 8, 2024May 12, 2024

It’s time for the UK to acknowledge the Armenian genocide

This OpEd was originally published in Reaction on 8th May, 2024

On 24th April, Armenians around the world gathered to observe Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. At local churches and memorials, they commemorated the 1.5 million Armenians who were systematically killed by Ottoman authorities between 1915 and 1923; to this day one of the worst massacres in human history.

Tragically, their pain will be compounded by the ongoing denial and obfuscation of governments across the world, many of whom still refuse to acknowledge it even took place. The UK, for example, has never formally acknowledged the Armenian genocide — and only 33 countries around the world have. Sadly, even the Armenian government itself is beginning to buckle to international pressure, with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan telling his people to “overcome [their] trauma.”

April 7, 2024April 7, 2024

A practical and informative ‘Livewell Guide’ is preferable to prohibition

This OpEd was originally published in Comment Central on 21st March, 2024

Health policy in the UK has taken a rather sharp prohibitionist turn in recent years, with the government increasingly willing to stifle the sale of unhealthy products through regulation. Cigarettes and disposable vapes will soon be effectively banned across the country, and crackdowns on junk food and energy drinks may soon follow.

Whilst these attempts to safeguard public health are well-meaning, they are unlikely to achieve lasting behavioural change. Policymakers’ efforts would be better spent making sure people have the requisite knowledge and skills to improve their lifestyles on their own.

April 7, 2024April 7, 2024

Targeted literacy support could help millions of boys struggling at school

This OpEd was originally published in ConservativeHome on 1st February, 2024

A recent study from the University of Cambridge highlights the wide disparity in educational outcomes between boys and girls, an enduring problem which has existed in UK schools for decades. Despite evidence this gap is having a profound impact on the prospects of millions of boys and men, this topic has gone largely unnoticed by policymakers.

The study, which analysed data at all stages of British education, found a consistent trend of “higher female attainment, and higher female participation” at GCSE, A-Level, Higher Education (HE), and even at Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) where children are aged four and five.

November 28, 2023November 28, 2023

‘Ghastly Marionettes with Human Faces’ – Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism

Background: This essay was written in 2019 as part of a master’s degree. It has since been updated to reflect my evolving thoughts on the horrors of totalitarianism, and indeed human evil in general. Whilst the conclusions below are my own, this should be seen more as an illustration of Hannah Arendt’s writings on totalitarianism in the 20th century.

This essay will outline Hannah Arendt’s account of the unprecedented evil of totalitarianism in the 20^th century, with specific focus on the regimes of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. This will be done first by outlining the distinctive nature of totalitarianism, and why it cannot be captured under the conventional categories of moral and political thought. Next, I will unpack the comparison that Arendt makes between common sense and ideological ‘supersense’, which will lead into an attempt to distinguish the radical evil of totalitarianism from more conventional forms of evil.

April 18, 2023

Chronological Snobbery: Present-Elitism and the Teen Age

In The Case Against the Sexual Revolution (2022), feminist author Louise Perry uses a phrase which captures one of the governing spirits of our age: ‘chronological snobbery’. Coined by C.S. Lewis, this term refers to the human tendency to uncritically accept the cultural and intellectual trends of the present, whilst rejecting as ‘outdated’ anything which came before some arbitrary cut-off point.

In essence, this is the ethos of the rebellious teenager run amok: a fiery urge to cast off the stifling rules and mores of the fuddy-duddy elders. This powerful, almost primordial force is a common feature of adolescence, as indeed it should be. Rebellion against authority is a healthy part of our ungainly slouch towards adulthood, provided this Life of Brian-esque chorus of ‘I am an individual’ is artfully managed by society.

March 6, 2022March 9, 2022

Dissecting a frog – is comedy dying in the West?

There’s a famous line by E.B. White which has been rattling around my head the last few weeks. It goes like this: “Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better, but the frog dies in the process”. This is a brilliant line, of course, but lately I can’t help thinking that the inimitable White was slightly off-the-mark on this one. After all, can a joke really be understood better by analysing it to death? Or does the process of picking it apart not only kill its impact, but also compromise our ability to understand it?

You couldn’t truly ‘understand’ a painting by dividing it into separate heaps of coloured paint. In the same way, trying to reach some objective or rational understanding of a joke –usually attempted by shearing it from context and distilling its contents under a mental microscope – can only hope to give us the most simplistic and rudimentary of knowledge.

March 9, 2021March 10, 2021

Universal Basic Income and Children’s Rights: A Compromise?

This essay will outline a proposal on how the case of children should be handled under a society which has fully established a ‘Universal Basic Income’. This is a topic which poses a unique problem for UBI, due to the fact that up until adulthood, children are often ill-equipped to make use of such fiscal endowments. Nevertheless, children are future adult citizens, and so to deny them UBI may be a failure to realize the ‘universality’ of the policy. The proposal presented here attempts to strike a balance between the duty of society to extend its welfare commitments to its infant population, and the necessity of withholding such endowments until they can be effectively exercised by rational adults. I therefore advocate combining UBI with another proposal: that of the ‘Stakeholder Society’, whereby all citizens reaching the age of adolescence receive a lump-sum cash endowment. It will be argued that a welfare system which combines these two proposals is superior to either one alone, combining their benefits whilst also mitigating some of their issues.

March 1, 2021March 2, 2021

Hannah Arendt and ‘The Politics of Identity’

This essay explores the role of identity in the political thought of Hannah Arendt, with specific focus on her views concerning the politics of identity. By ‘politics of identity’, I mean those movements which base their political goals and actions on the interests of a particular social group [1]. The intention of this is to explore the principal virtues and dangers of such projects through the prism of Arendt`s political thought. This will be done firstly by unpacking her own experiences as a Jewish refugee fleeing the Nazis, and what this may have taught her about the relationship between identity and politics. Secondly, I will distinguish between different motivating forces that can drive identity movements, before outlining the strengths of Arendt`s own concept of ‘solidarity’. Finally, the relationship that exists between sameness and difference in the politics of identity will be discussed, whereby I will argue that Arendt`s notion of ‘plurality’ succeeds in striking an effective balance between these forces. The ultimate goal of the essay is to outline an ‘Arendtian approach’ to the politics of identity; a modus operandi for identity movements drawn from her thought which capitalizes on the virtues of such politics, whilst also avoiding its core dangers.

August 25, 2020September 20, 2022

Learning the Lessons of the Holocaust: Towards a More Sophisticated Conception of Evil

Background: This academic essay was written in late 2020 as the final project of a masters degree. In it, I delve into the nature of human evil by engaging in a detailed study of a historical atrocity: Nazism and the Holocaust. Through this horrifying case study, I aimed to shed light not only on that event, but also on the nature of human evil on a more universal level. The theory I put forward in the final chapter – ‘Towards a New Conception of Evil’ is intended to have contemporary relevance to our understanding of evil in the modern world, and so will hopefully also be of value to readers of this blog.

Indeed, deepening our understanding of evil (and in particular mass evil practiced by the State) has only become more relevant in recent months, given the the woefully under-reported events currently developing in China`s Xinjiang Province. As these words are being written, millions of Uighur Muslims have been incarcerated by the Chinese State and have been forced to endure intense labor, ideological ‘re-education’, and, if some reports are to be believed, sterilization. What we may well be witnessing are the stirrings of yet another genocide, and so now more than ever it is necessary to look back and reflect on the horrors of the 20th century. After all, if we fail to fully imbibe the lessons of history, we may well be left mute and uncomprehending when the next Holocaust comes knocking.