Category Archives: Philosophy & Ethics

WHO WILL GIVE SHAPE TO DISAFFECTION?

December 10, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the gilets jaunes protests, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on MSF being forced to end its rescue operations in the Mediterranean). It was published in the Observer, 9 December 2018, under the headline ‘A fear of cultural loss is fuelling anger with elites across Europe’. ‘Can we borrow him?’ Gary Lineker asked in April of the ‘charismatic, smart and ballsy’ Emmanuel Macron. The BBC presenter was far from alone in being […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: austerity, centrism, disaffection, emmanuel macron, far right, france, gilets jaunes, left, protests

A PLAYLIST FOR PETE SHELLEY

December 7, 2018 by Kenan Malik

What is it that links Big Mama Thornton’s ‘Hound dog’ to Sam Cooke’s ‘(What a) wonderful world’ to the Kinks’ ‘You really got me’ to the Supremes’ ‘You can’t hurry love’ to Toots and Maytal’s ‘Pressure drop’ to the Undertones’ ‘Teenage kicks’ to Prince’s ‘When doves cry’ to the Buzzcocks’ ‘Ever fallen in love (with someone you shouldn’t have)?’? It’s one of those strange questions that popped into my head this week after the death of Pete Shelley. Shelley was […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: buzzcocks, music, pete shelley, pop songs, punk

WHERE DOES THIS BULLY GET HIS IDEAS FROM?

December 3, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on an assault on a Syrian refugee schoolboy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the CRISPR baby). It was published in the Observer, 2 December 2018, under the headline ‘I know all about being bullied by racists. That’s the Britain I grew up in’. I cannot recall ever being ‘waterboarded’. But nor can I recall many days when, as a schoolboy, I did not return home without a bruised lip […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, hostile environment, immigration, racism, racist attacks, refugees, social media, theresa may, tobias ellwood

ON THE ETHICS OF CRISPR

November 30, 2018 by Kenan Malik

Last week, the Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced the birth of the first CRISPR baby (actually, twins). Two beautiful little Chinese girls, Lulu and Nana, came crying into the world as healthy as any other babies a few weeks ago’, He said in the first of five videos posted on to YouTube. He’s claim is as yet unverified, but if true, it would signal a landmark moment in human genome-editing. It has also been widely met with outrage and condemned […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science • Tags: bioethics, biotechnology, china, chinese science, crispr, ethics, gene editing, genetics, genome editing, germline editing, he jiankui

THE SCANDAL OF THE WORKING POOR

September 17, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the ‘working poor’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on hypocrisy and the Church of England). It was published in the Observer, 16 September 2018, under the headline ‘Welfare was meant to help the poor, not subsidise exploitative employers’. It will mean fewer jobs. That was the chorus from many on the right, from Tej Parikh of the Institute of Directors to the chancellor, Philip Hammond, in response to […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: austerity, british politics, conservative party, gig economy, john mcdonnell, labour party, matthew desmoond, poverty, working poor

TREASON, OBLIGATION AND TRUST

July 30, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about treason laws, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 July 2018, under the headline ‘If we want to build trust in society, a new treason law is no way to do it’. Does the crime of treason have any meaning today? A new report from the Policy Exchange thinktank, Aiding the Enemy, insists that it does. Britain’s current laws on treason are unfit for purpose and should be updated. An updated law, […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: british politics, dissent, free speech, freedom struggles, morality, policy exchange, treason, usa

DESIGNER BABIES AND DYSTOPIAN VISIONS

July 23, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about genome editing, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on being banned in Pakistan, a shorter version of my previous Pandaemonium post) It was published in the Observer, 22 July 2018, under the headline ‘Fear of dystopian change should not blind us to the potential of gene editing’. ‘Designer babies on horizon’, ran the headlines. Last week, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent body advising on […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science • Tags: bioethics, biotechnology, crispr, designer babies, dystopia, ethics, gene editing, genetic enhancement, genetics, genome editing, gremlin editing, ivf, louise brown, Nuffield council

HOPE AND FEAR IN A WORLD OF UNCERTAINTY

July 16, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the meaning of hope, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 15 July 2018 under the headline ‘The Thai cave rescue was born of hope, an instinct that sustains and drives us’. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’ So reads the inscription above the entrance to Hell in Dante’s Inferno. There must have been times over the past two weeks when it might have seemed the inscription to the entrance to the Tham Luang […]

Categories: Human, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: hope, human nature, seneca, thai cave rescue, tham luang caves, viktor frankl

THE SUPREME COURT AND SOCIAL CHANGE

July 9, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about Donald Trump’s judicial pick for the Supreme Court, and what it tells us about the relationship between courts, democracy and social change, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on an exhibition in Florence on the Islamic influence on European art.) It was published in the Observer, 8 July 2018, under the headline ‘The law, whether in the US or UK, can’t change society if we resist’. […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: democracy, donald trump, judicial activism, judicial system, justice, law, roe v wade, scotus, supreme court, usa

DEBATING HUMANS AND MACHINES

June 25, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what the remarkable achievement of IBM’s ‘Project Debater’ tells us about the differences between humans and machines, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the persecution of the Roma.) It was published in the Observer, 24 June 2018, under the headline ‘Machines may beat us in debate, but will they ever have the human touch?’ So, a machine can now not only demolish you at chess or devastate you […]

Categories: Human, Philosophy & Ethics, Science • Tags: a1, Human, ibm, machine, meaning, project debater, semantic networks, social

‘TROUBLE IS AT THE HEART OF WHAT WE DO’

May 18, 2018 by Kenan Malik

Last week Pater Mayer died. He was a giant of the publishing industry. An American, he was in 1978 given the job of rescuing the venerable British publishers Penguin, which then had become almost defunct. He turned it into a global brand, and a major force in publishing. He transformed publishing in India by founding of Penguin India. Ten years later came the event that was to define both Mayer and Penguin. In September 1988 Penguin published Salman Rushdie’s The […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: ayatollah khomeini, fatwa, free speech, islamism, penguin books, peter mayer, publishing, rushdie affair, salman rushdie, the satanic verses

MORALITY, THE LAW AND THE DEATH OF A CHILD

April 30, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay on the Alfie Evans case was the main part of my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the IAAF’s new regulations on women athletes with elevated testosterone levels.) It was published in the Observer, 29 April 2018, under the headline ‘A court is an unfit place for a case like Alfie Evans and its moral complexity’. It would be difficult not to share the heartbreak of Alfie Evans’ parents. Alfie was a 23-month-old child […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: alfie evans, best interests, death, harm, justice system, law, medical ethics, morality

THE MEANING OF HERITAGE IN AN AGE OF IDENTITY

March 30, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of my keynote address to the Interpret Europe conference on ‘Heritage and Identity’ held in Kőszeg, Hungary, 23-26 March 2018. The skeleton was discovered in 1903 at Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, in south-west England. He became known as Cheddar Man, and is the oldest almost complete skeleton of Homo sapiens ever found in Britain. In the 1970s, radiocarbon dating suggested that he lived around 10,000 years ago, shortly after the first settlers crossed from continental […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: aya sofia, christianity, clash of civilizations, cordoba, cultural diversity, cultural heritage, culture, diversity, enlightenment, hagia sophia, herder, ibn rushd, identity politics, islam, istanbul, multiculturalism, romanticism, unesco

LANGSTON HUGHES ON DREAMS AND DREAMS DEFERRED

December 14, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Two poems by Langston Hughes (1902-1967), the great poet of the Harlem Renaissance, that speak to our moment as profoundly as many a political analysis. . Dreams . Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow. . A dream deferred . What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: dreams, langston hughes, poetry

IN SEARCH OF THE COMMON GOOD

November 23, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of the RICS Harris lecture that I gave on 14 November 2017 on ‘The public interest and the common good’. The public interest. The public advantage. The public good. The common good. These are all phrases that seem indispensible, phrases which we all use, and of which we have an instinctive understanding, yet the meanings of which are all contested and seemingly impossible to define. These phrases are often used interchangeably. Many philosophers and political thinkers would […]

Categories: History, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: aquinas, aristotle, common good, enlightenment, ethics, greek philosophy, history of moral thought, individualism, liberalism, locke, mo tzu, public interest, social contract