Eternal Optimism – essay for Self & Society’s 50th Birthday Symposium Fifty years ago I was nineteen and in a mess. The previous two to three years I had been reading Ouspensky, Alan Watts, Krishnamurti, I’d travelled the hippy trail overland to India and been in an audience with the Dali Lama, I’d been meditating,… Read More
Ukraine: What needs to happen next?
Today is the 19th April 2022 and I have just finished a piece on Ukraine and how I see the situation and what needs to happen next. Every day the picture changes and evolves, so in a few days who knows what it will all look like. But I do try and tie it all… Read More
A New Republic of the Heart
Terry Patten’s book “A New Republic of the Heart” is a wonderful exploration of how we can respond to our current global crisis with wisdom and passion and sanity, I highly recommend it. It is the second book over that last ten years that has made me stop and marvel at the accomplishment. (The other… Read More
A new base for progressive politics
My latest article is a reflection on the recent US election and from there the need for the left generally to broaden its appeal so as to avoid a repetition of the recent upsurge in right wing authoritarian governments. I argue that the left needs a new base, which one, understands the psychology of trauma… Read More
Psychology of Conspiracy Theorists
Conspiracy theories seem to be taking over the world. This is not a good thing. As with all unconscious projective processes, if they continue to be identified with and indulged, the negative consequences increase, until hopefully, at some point, reality impinges. They flow from the same fragile place that allows people to get sucked into… Read More
Conspiracy Theories
Please click here to see this post
Marianne Williamson’s “A Politics of Love”
I now have now put on the “My Articles page” my review of Marianne Williamson’s book “A politics of Love” – the book was published in November 2018, and this review was writen a year later, it is still such an lovely book and so relevant to our troubled times.
Integrating Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Psychology and Spirituality
Introduction I have to confess that I find politics fascinating, even if very painful at times like these, facing as we do another five years of Conservative rule. I remain though optimistic that eventually our politics will move onto a different, more conscious and compassionate plane. I do think that our societies consciousness is slowly… Read More
What is the psychology of Neoliberalism and how do we get past it?
George Monbiot in his Guardian article (11/09/19) about the power of ideology, and how it is always based on some philosophical ground, says, “We make a mistake when we assume that money is the main motivation. Our unreformed, corrupt and corrupting political funding system ensures it is an important factor. But what counts above all… Read More
Politics, Psychology and Spirituality: The need for an Institute for the Understanding of Human Nature
Politics, Psychology and Spirituality: The need for an Institute for the Understanding of Human Nature. To read this as a pdf click here It has become increasingly clear to me that the negative effects of Capitalism subjugate and oppress most people. I agree with George Monbiot’s recent analysis (Guardian 25/04/19) that it is largely a… Read More
Reality, Fantasy and Politics (v2)
Please see this piece on “Articles” page with the new title The Two Streams of Reality, and Politics
Another look at politics
Another look at politics prompted by George Monbiot’s book – Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis I am very sympathetic to George Monbiot’s ideas in his new book about the need for local community to emerge as a force for social change. How this change needs to come from… Read More
Anarchistic Democracy
I recently watched a BBC4 Storyville documentary by Carne Ross called “The Accidental Anarchist: Life without Government” (23/07/17). I’m very grateful, the film “blew my mind” as the saying goes. It blew open the doors to seeing that maybe globally we are on the verge of a transition from old fashioned ‘hierarchical democracy’ with its… Read More
Our need for Philosophy
There was a lovely article today (9th Jan 17) in the Guardian arguing for philosophy to be taught in schools. It is from the point of view of enabling and teaching the young to think in preparation for a working life that will increasingly need flexibility, due to many factors including the computerisation of so… Read More
What a Year!
Syria, the migrant crisis, France’s terror attacks, Brexit, Turkey, Trump, Italy, Aleppo, all against the background of our climate’s inexorable warming and the increase in inequality in many parts of the world, makes for quite a year. The later seems to be partly emanating from the nature of capitalism and how the wealthy have benefited… Read More
US Election
So, why did so many white working class men vote for Trump? Why did so many women vote for Trump? To me this is same question as why so of those who suffered the deprivation and abuse go onto perpetrate it. It is the same reason that those who have been treated harshly and in… Read More
Change, Politics and Development
In our post-modern age the idea of development and maturity are treated with great distrust. This is understandable, we had centuries of religions, power and money in the form of aristocracy and then the intellectual male dominated enlightenment establishment, all telling us what we should do, and how we should be.