The Meaning of Debt
Sarah Dunant looks at different aspects of debt, including the debt owed to those who have been a force for change in Arab countries. Producer: Sheila Cook.
Dec 27, 2011•14 min
A Point of View
A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
Episodes
The End, yet again?
The author and philosopher John Gray on the merits of living for the present. "We tend to look forward to a future state of fulfilment in which all turmoil has ceased", Gray writes. But, he says, "when we look to the future to give meaning to our lives, we lose the meaning we can make for ourselves here and now". He argues that we should give up our obsession with endings and urges us not to be wary of change. "Humans are sturdy creatures, built to withstand disruption". "Conflict never ceases",...
Dec 26, 2011•14 min
Carols at Christmas
Lisa Jardine reflects on the power of music to move, especially at Christmas, when the singing of carols unites singers and listeners alike, in an outpouring of community spirit. She also celebrates each advance in technology which has made music available to all, not just an elite, from the fifteenth century mass production of carol books to the screening in cinemas worldwide of opera live from the Met in New York. Producer: Sheila Cook.
Dec 23, 2011•10 min
Climate Change Belief
Lisa Jardine thinks selective hearing skews the debate over climate change and urges climate scientists to fully engage in a conversation with their sceptical critics. "Graphs and pie charts have evidently failed to convince. Perhaps a more discursive approach which focuses on observable change backed up by scientific evidence may be more persuasive." Producer: Sheila Cook.
Dec 16, 2011•10 min
Beware the Experts
The historian Lisa Jardine recalls CP Snow for lessons on the dangers of leaving political decisions to technocrats and experts and calls for better informed debate by politicians and public alike in the fields of science and economics. Producer: Sheila Cook.
Dec 09, 2011•10 min
Lisa Jardine: Finding Family History
The historian Lisa Jardine welcomes recent moves to promote the teaching of history in schools and finds herself converted to the value of family history after the discovery of a tape recording shed light on a puzzling family photograph which was taken in 1906. Producer: Sheila Cook.
Dec 02, 2011•10 min
The Oxbridge Interview
Mary Beard reflects on the purpose of the much-maligned "Oxbridge interview" and defends the "Would you rather be an apple or a banana" school of questioning.... Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Nov 25, 2011•10 min
Reflections on Monetary Union
With the euro in turmoil, Mary Beard reflects on the very first monetary union, two and a half thousand years ago. And she contemplates the detail of the modern euro coins. "Take a closer look at those heads-and-tails" she writes, "and you'll find some rather disconcerting angles on European history and politics". She decides that it is the Greek Euro-coinage that offers the most food for thought. The bull on the back of the 2 euro coin is, in fact, part of a depiction of a rape. Zeus, the king ...
Nov 18, 2011•10 min
On Age and Beauty
Mary Beard takes a peek at Miss World 2011 and ponders why - unlike her days as a radical feminist teenager -the whole occasion doesn't fill her with fury. "It all felt" - she writes - "like a scantily-clad, tabloid version of University Challenge....but with a kind of high-minded worthiness". Long gone the old beauty contest ambitions of travelling and starting a family. "These contestants talked of becoming international lawyers, museum curators, architects, diplomats". So does this lack outra...
Nov 11, 2011•10 min
Mary Beard: On Tyrants
From the ingeniously ghastly ways they killed their opponents to their weird forms of dress, Mary Beard reflects on the uncanny similarities between Colonel Gaddafi and the tyrants of ancient Rome. She argues that the similarities were present in life - and in death. "On 11 March 222 AD," she writes, "a posse of rebel soldiers tracked down the Roman emperor Elagabalus to his hiding place. The tyrant was holed up in a latrine, desperately hoping to keep clear of the liberators, who were out for h...
Nov 04, 2011•10 min
The Arms Trade
Will Self deplores the arms trade and Britain's role in it, including the sale of weapons to authoritarian regimes which abuse human rights. He takes aim at the euphemisms that surround the sector. "The elision of business-speak with the foggy verbiage of warfare is perhaps the most deranging aspect of the contemporary arms trade," he says. Producer: Sheila Cook.
Oct 28, 2011•10 min
Class, race and social mobility
Will Self reflects that racism is rarely a sole cause of social injustice but alongside other problems such as poverty it can limit people's social mobility. "All too often pundits and policymakers seek a single cause for social stratification when they should accept that in a nation where inequality in real, monetary terms is increasing....the reasons for being at the bottom of the heap are manifold. It's not a case of class or family or education or money or race, it's a matter of of class, fa...
Oct 21, 2011•10 min
In praise of wind turbines
Will Self praises the beauty of wind turbines and says protests against them spring from a misconceived idyllic view of our already man-made landscape. "It would seem to me that most of those who energetically campaign against the planting of wind farms in their bosky vale do so not out of a profound appreciation of the dew-jewelled web of life, but merely as spectators who wish the show that they've paid admission for to go as advertised." Producer: Sheila Cook.
Oct 14, 2011•10 min
Why Prisons Fail
Will Self sees an urgent need to reform the prison system and deplores what he sees as a lack of political will to tackle its present failings. "Not only does prison, for the vast majority of those who endure it not work - either as punishment or as rehabilitation - but there is no escaping the conclusion that it functions as a stimulant to crime, rather than its bromide". Producer: Sheila Cook.
Oct 07, 2011•10 min
Political party membership
Will Self attacks the people who join political parties as "donkeys led by donkeys". He criticises the spectacle of the party conferences, a parade of "endlessly biddable Dobbins" displaying "a mental passivity that makes the average X-factor audience look like the participants in one of Plato's symposia." He argues that members repeatedly see their principles betrayed by the actions of the leaders of their parties who are continually fighting over the same patch of turf, "butting and biting the...
Sep 30, 2011•10 min
Churchill, chance and the black dog
"For a couple of days in May 1940, the fate of the world turned on the fall of a leaf" says John Gray. He outlines the strange conjunction of events - and the work of chance - that led to Churchill becoming Prime Minister. He muses on how Churchill was found by one of his advisers around one o'clock on the morning of May 9th "brooding alone in one of his clubs". He was given a crucial bit of advice which may have secured him the job. What would have happened Gray wonders if he hadn't been found ...
Sep 23, 2011•10 min
Believing in Belief
John Gray argues that the scientific and rationalist attack on religion is misguided. Extreme atheists do not realise that for most people across the globe, religion is not generally about personal belief. Instead, "Practice - ritual, meditation, a way of life - is what counts." Central to religion is the power of myth, which still speaks to the contemporary mind. "The idea that science can enable us to live without myths is one of these silly modern stories." In fact, he argues, science has cre...
Sep 16, 2011•10 min
Cats, birds and humans
John Gray considers why the human animal needs contact with something other than itself. He tells the story of an eminent philosopher who once told him that he'd persuaded his cat to become a vegan! An effort, it seems, to get the cat to share his values. But Gray argues that there's no evolutionary hierarchy with humans at the top. "What birds and animals offer us", he says, "is not confirmation of our sense of having an exalted place in some sort of cosmic hierarchy. It's admission into a larg...
Sep 09, 2011•10 min
John Gray: The revolution of capitalism
The author and philosopher John Gray presents a hard-hitting talk about capitalism. He argues that one side-effect of the financial crisis is an increasing number of people who believe that Karl Marx was right. He outlines why Marx's belief that capitalism would lead to revolution - and end bourgeois life - has come true. But not in the way Marx imagined. For increasing numbers of people, he says, a middle class existence is no longer even an aspiration. "More and more people live from day to da...
Sep 02, 2011•10 min
Kim Philby
As recently discovered letters from Kim Philby are published, John Gray argues that the spy's life illustrates why we are so poor at predicting the future. Where Philby saw a bright future in Soviet Communism - one that led him to betray friends and colleagues - many in the West hoped for a different utopia in Russia as Communism collapsed. Neither saw their dreams realised. As John Gray observes, both groups "failed to understand that the only genuine historical law is the law of irony." Produc...
Aug 26, 2011•10 min
Greece and the Meaning of Folly
The celebrated thinker John Gray gives his reflection on the meaning of folly. Taking the myth of the Trojan horse as his starting point, he explores what he sees as the modern day folly unfolding in Europe. He calls on European leaders to reconsider the single European currency - a project he says was always doomed to fail. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Aug 19, 2011•9 min
The Advantages of Pessimism
Alain de Botton on why pessimism is the key to happiness. He argues that the incompatibility between the grandeur of our aspirations and the reality of life is bound to disappoint - unless we learn to be a bit more gloomy! Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Aug 12, 2011•10 min
Modern Parenting
Alain de Botton takes a witty look at modern parenting. He explains why today's parent simply can't avoid baking biscuits and helping to paint Tyrannosaurus Rex's scales! Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Aug 05, 2011•10 min
On Social Climbing
Alain de Botton reflects on social climbing - and argues that the activity should be seen - at times - as evidence of a natural curiosity about the modern world. And he says in the current environment, it's often not idle pleasure-seeking, but an attempt to keep yourself in a job. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Jul 29, 2011•10 min
What's in a marriage
Alain de Botton on our high expectations for modern marriage. He argues that expecting one person to be a good partner, lover and parent is - almost - asking the impossible. And he shows how different it all was before the mid eighteenth century... Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Jul 22, 2011•10 min
The Art of Conversation
Alain de Botton on why preparing conversation is as important as preparing a good salad for our summer picnic. He questions why we put so much effort into our social encounters, but leave our conversation to chance. With examples from history and literature, he argues that it's when there are rules to our conversation that our spirit can best be set free. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Jul 15, 2011•9 min
In Praise of the Zoo
Following the birth of a baby moose in Whipsnade zoo - a rare event - Alain de Botton muses on the value of exotic animals in helping to give us perspective on our own lives. He explains why he's rediscovered wild animals and suggests a zoo trip as a perfect summer outing! Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Jul 08, 2011•10 min
On marriage
Alain de Botton muses on why a bookish life is a poor preparation for marriage! He says Western literature's obsession with unrequited love means the average love story is of help only to the lovelorn. And he argues that the blandness of the word marriage hides a "welter of intensity and depth that put to shame the most passionate works of literature". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Feb 11, 2011•10 min
In Praise of the Nanny State
Alain de Botton asks why the idea of a nanny state is so unappealing. He says complete freedom - left totally to our own devices - is rarely what we want. He says there's a lot to be said for the odd paternalistic nudge in the right direction. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Feb 04, 2011•10 min
Are museums our new churches?
Alain de Botton explores the notion that museums are our new churches. But museums - he says - have a lot to learn from churches about getting their message across. He appeals for a complete revamp of some of our favourite museums. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Jan 28, 2011•10 min
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