A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
Authenticity, writes Monica Ali, has become the yardstick by which we measure the value of much of our day-to-day lives. "In this hyper-mobile, hyper-connected world" she says, "the cult of authenticity is flourishing". But what does it mean to be "authentic"? Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Monica Ali describes her desire for vengeance after her son was robbed by two boys on mopeds. She reflects on the recent surge in moped crime and what can be done to stop it. She says the criminals involved in this new brand of crime are nearly all children and, whatever our desire for justice, "crackdowns on children can never provide the entire - the right - solution to the problem". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
"European society", says Sir Roger Scruton, "is rapidly jettisoning its Christian heritage and has found nothing to put in its place save the religion of human rights". But, he argues, this new "religion" delivers one-sided solutions since rights favour the person who can claim them - whatever the moral reasons for opposing them. He says Europe needs to rediscover its Christian roots. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Roger Scruton asks: "What does the Tory Party really stand for?" He says the Conservative party at present is muddling along without a philosophy. But he argues that, far from being the 'nasty party', the most fundamental belief underpinning Conservative policies historically is the idea of responsibility towards others. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Roger Scruton looks at the impact of Harry Potter on our world view. "People are starting to live in a kind of cyber-Hogwarts", he says, "a fantasy world in which goods are simply obtained by needing them, and then asking some future Prime Minister to wave the magic wand". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Adam Gopnik muses on the art of parenting and the challenges of getting it right. "Too much praise... or too little?", he wonders. "You have to be hands off, smiling" but at the same time "engaged, unsparing in honesty". He concludes that raising children is an art, not a science or a craft. "They are the artists of their own lives but we can, we must, teach them the art of living". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Adam Gopnik reflects on why musical theatre makes its makers miserable. He should know - he's just finished an eight week run of a musical he wrote. He concludes that while films, for example, have a "natural author" in the shape of the director, a musical doesn't and "a seven-person creative team of equals", he says can never be harmonious. But there's a lot of fun to be had along the way.... Producer: Adele Armstrong.
"I have lived long enough now", writes Adam Gopnik, "to see several absolutely horrific epochs come and go...looking much less absolutely horrific once they're gone." He reflects on how Donald Trump's presidency will affect our sense of what constitutes normality. "Are we every day normalizing behaviour", he asks, "that will bring an end to normalcy itself". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Adam Gopnik reflects on why he turned to marijuana to relieve his pain during a recent bout of shingles. His 17 year old daughter was horrified. But Adam concludes that wise drug policy accepts the existence of intoxicants and says "this tale of unshaven debauchery" has made him realise, for the first time, how much his own "hyper disciplined, driven life" had taken out of him. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
"You can't call him crazy, because it isn't fair to crazy people", writes Adam Gopnik. "You can't compare him to a four-year-old because four-year-old children are not in fact tyrannical or egotistical". Six months into Donald Trump's presidency, Adam Gopnik searches - almost in vain - for a descriptive category to fit. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
"I will now pause for a full two seconds to allow you to throw things at the radio", begins Adam Gopnik. He's working hard, he claims, at a literary festival in Capri. While there he goes in search of a white staircase - the subject of his favourite painting in the world. As he searches, he reflects on art, life and "the sketchbook of the twenty first century", the iphone. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
"It seems indisputable, to me", writes Will Self "that what makes it possible for our attractions to each other to be as deep and profound as they are, is some sort of difference - whether it be given, or something we create". Will reflects on what a truly gender-fluid society might look like. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Will Self gives a very personal view of high-rise buildings in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster. "As a commentator on the built environment", Will writes, "I've been too wry, too cynical and too disengaged over the past twenty years". "Grenfell Tower", he says, "was the bonfire of any remaining civic vanity in London ". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Howard Jacobson reflects on the political ironies that are emerging following the election. What should our response be to losing politically? Producer: Adele Armstrong.
"The election has left many people wondering if politics has morphed into a wholly new condition" writes John Gray. He reflects on whether politics really has been turned upside down by a momentous election. He argues that the situation is not unprecedented but says "the election has punctured what was the ruling illusion of our age - the belief that we'd left behind the ideological antagonisms of the past". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
"It's late in the year to be making a resolution I'm probably going to break, but the words have to be spoken" writes Howard Jacobson. "I hereby renounce Middlemarch". Howard reveals what lies behind his obsession for George Eliot's greatest novel and why he can't stop hymning its praises and quoting chunks of it from memory. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Howard Jacobson reflects on his home city's response to the Manchester attack. What confronts the city now, he says, is dealing with the fact that the perpetrator came from within itself. "All our cities shelter the same boy", he writes, "studiously immersed in the same story. And if we didn't know it before, stories can kill". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
As the season of literary festivals gets underway, Howard Jacobson tells us not to be lured by their appearance of being civilized. "The prevailing tone of sweet concord shouldn't be allowed to disguise the violent nature of creativity", he says. They're a fiercely competitive business for writers, he believes. "To write is to reconceive the world and only a God, or someone acting like a God, can do that...You don't want some other two-bit deity coming along and bagging the credit for what you'v...
Howard Jacobson speaks up in defense of the metropolitan liberal elite. He ponders why the word "elitist" has acquired such negative connotations in some fields - but not in others. "It makes no sense to me to love the best when they are footballers or the SAS, but not when they are thinkers or even politicians". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Howard Jacobson argues that talk of the dangers of artificial intelligence is premature. "The idea that if we feed enough lines of literature into a computer it will eventually be able to write its own Iliad", he writes, "is as preposterous as the old fancy that if a sufficient number of monkeys were given a sufficient number of Olivettis they would eventually hammer out a monkey Macbeth". Producer: Adele Armstrong.
A L Kennedy commends paying attention to voices as a way to discern truth telling. "Listening to our media, our public voices, as if we're listening to people in our everyday lives, holding them to that standard and not their own can help us to know when we're being driven towards the sound of a faked emotion or spun a tale." Producer: Sheila Cook.
A L Kennedy reflects on the way our past shapes our present and our future. "As groups we get trapped in our pasts, not quite repeating them, but sometimes forcing our futures out of shape for the sake of their ghosts." Producer: Sheila Cook.
AL Kennedy extols the virtues of reading and its power to encourage respect for the value and sovereignty of other people's existence. "It allows you to look and feel your way through the lives of others who may apparently be very other - and yet here they are - inside your head." Producer: Sheila Cook.
AL Kennedy says we should reject the media outlets that peddle only bad news whether real or fake in ever shriller voices, depicting a world of unremitting awfulness. "Fake facts - let's just call them lies - and deceptively selective coverage have to be peddled with greater than average outrage and shock just to keep their frailty from being examined too closely." Producer: Sheila Cook.
Tom Shakespeare argues that viewing dementia as a disability could help those living with the condition win greater rights. In the last few decades, he writes, we have seen many impairment groups unite to demand a better deal from government. "But when it comes to dementia, we are still thinking in terms of disease and tragedy and passivity". He believes treating dementia as a disability - with all the legal ramifications that involves - may help us change our attitudes and our policies. Produce...
Tom Shakespeare reflects on how all the political populists who now occupy our imaginations are master story tellers. People need stories and these stories appeal to us, he says. But he argues that as well as persuasive stories, more than ever we need facts. "The plural of anecdote is not data, as a professor used to tell me", he writes. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Tom Shakespeare on why - in today's world of uncertainty and fear - it may give us some political consolation to remember that while everything positive in life is short-lived, so too is everything negative. He argues that believing that the best is behind us stops us making the most of present opportunities. "To wallow in the past is to be sentimental, to seek an impossible return", he writes. "Our task is to create something different but equally fulfilling in future". Producer: Adele Armstron...
Stella Tillyard looks at the phonomenon of the "idling brain" - when the brain is supposedly at rest. She ponders what it means that we have no idea what's running through the minds of the people closest to us and argues that - in an increasingly fractured world - knowing what's going on in each other's minds might help us understand each other. Scientists, she points out, have taken up the challenge. One group of psychologists estimate that people spend somewhere between 25 and 50% of their wak...
"Human beings shape their perceptions according to their beliefs", writes John Gray, not the other way round. He says people "will persuade themselves to believe almost anything, no matter how far-fetched, if it enables them to preserve their view of the world". He asks how we can best come to terms with the realisation that the world is frighteningly unpredictable. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
John Gray look at the history of populism. He argues that modern-day populism has largely been created by centre parties who have identified themselves with an unsustainable status quo. He looks at how populism is likely to play out in the upcoming elections in France and Holland. Producer: Adele Armstrong.
