Even in my 20s I enjoyed writing books. I was not really into articles. I was as content to publish novel data and ideas in books and chapters as to submit them to journals. And this even though I was always employed in medical schools where only articles – and in high impact journals at… Read More »
The ‘Epstein scandal’ has understandably and rightly led to a focus on the sexual abuse of young women. But there is more to say about this – if I might deploy a technical term once more – ‘greedy bastard’. There will be more information leaked later I’m sure, but we already have some to be… Read More »
I am gender critical. In other words I accept the biological distinction between the sexes. Does this mean I want to ‘other’, ‘reject’ or that I ‘hate’ the trans community. Of course not. Nor do I accept charges of bigotry. If anyone actually reads the UK Supreme Court judgement affirming the salience of biological sex… Read More »
Books 2017 Dexter: Ted Dexter declares Simenon: Maigret, Longnon and the gangsters Talbot & Weaver: Flight of the martlets Rutherford: Unexpected Simenon: Maigret and the tall woman (5) Thomas: Proud Burke: The jealous kind Urry: What is the future? Betjeman: Ghastly good taste Streeck: How will capitalism end? (10) Dick: The man in the high… Read More »
When Time Stands Still Have you ever found yourself caught between not wanting to do anything and not wanting to do nothing? Maybe it’s a trap you fall into after three score years and ten of constant doing and little time to peruse options. I’m now gazing out of a café window,… Read More »
FRAGMENT 6: WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US, AND WHAT’S TO BE DONE? What, Lenin asked, is to be done? There are several problems in answering this totally reasonable question. What kind of society do we want? More fundamentally, what does a good society look like? Given the present dire and deteriorating state of affairs, how… Read More »
FRAGMENT 5: GOING GLOBAL Thus far the focus has been on the fractured society of England/UK. But what price a social transformation of society in England and the UK if this is accomplished at the price of worsening living conditions in other countries? It should be noted that most people in the world are very… Read More »
FRAGMENT FOUR: COLLECTIVE AGENCY AND RESISTANCE When individuals come together to act in concert we can refer to collective agency. Collective agency can function to defend the status quo or to oppose it. At any given time and in any social formation there are forces for order, stability and the status quo and forces for… Read More »
FRAGMENT THREE: RENTIER CAPITALISM AND STRUCTURAL DIVISIONS There is a long-established argument that from its origins in the long 16th century capitalism has had an inbuilt tendency to contradiction and fracture. Left to its own devices, Adam Smith confessed, the rich will get richer and the poor poorer. The compelling way in which Karl Marx… Read More »
FRAGMENT TWO: THE SOCIOLOGICAL PROJECT Like other intellectual disciplines, sociology has over time developed a body of theories, concepts and programmes of research that can seem overly technical to others. And to complicate matters further, while we all accept that, say, physicists or biologists, possess expert knowledge that we do not, there is a widespread… Read More »