Night Waves
NIGHT WAVES – BBC RADIO 3. I was on the programme last night discussing cynicism with classicist Richard Seaford and presenter Rana Mitter.
ReadTag: Ethics
What’s the problem with boredom?
The thought that only boring people get bored is such a commonplace that it’s not clear who said it first. G K Chesterton, for example, coined the similar “There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.” Like many familiar sayings, there is a wisdom here that quickly turns to folly if we don’t read it carefully…
ReadIs trying enough?
A culture which doesn’t prize trying in itself only encourages people not to try hard enough. And when writers do that, the result is almost always trying, in the worst sense of the word.
ReadThe vegan carnivore?
The chef Richard McGeown has faced bigger culinary challenges in his distinguished career than frying a meat patty in a little sunflower oil and butter. But this time the eyes and cameras of hundreds of journalists in the room were fixed on the 5oz (140g) pink disc sizzling in his pan, one that had been five years and €250,000 in the making. This was the world’s first proper portion of cultured meat, a beef burger created by Mark Post, professor of physiology, and his team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands…
ReadIs philosophy therapeutic?
“There is no profit in philosophy when it doesn’t expel the sufferings of the mind,” claimed Epicurus. Some 2,300 years later, plenty of people still agree, most notably Alain de Botton, who in 2000 splashed this quote on the back cover of his book The Consolations of Philosophy. But when I hear this line trotted out, far from soothing my psyche, it provokes a dangerous surge in my blood pressure.
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