Tag: Ethics

On humility

Articles & Essays

Like modesty, humility is something that, if professed, is self-refuting. True humility is expressed in deeds, not words. The humble are those who truly walk the same ground as everyone else, not necessarily with grovelling, hunched backs but certainly not lording it over others either. What we need is more such genuine humility in public life, and hear less of it in extremis. The truly humble feel the ground beneath their feet every day and do not only become aware of it when held aloft or pushed down to their knees.

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I still love Kierkegaard

Articles & Essays

Discovering that your childhood idols are now virtually ancient is usually a disturbing reminder of your own mortality. But for me, realising that 5th May 2013 marks the 200th anniversary of Søren Kierkegaard’s birth was more of a reminder of his immortality. Kierkegaard is not so much a thinker for our time but a timeless thinker, whose work is pertinent for all ages yet destined to be fully attuned to none.

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Do we have too many things?

The Shrink and The Sage

A whole generation is growing up consuming a lot which it does not think of as stuff at all. But they are still consuming, more than ever. And although experiences may not be things, they are being bought and sold, acquired as memories and treated as commodities. If the transition we are seeing is from ownership to consumption, it may not take us very far in the direction of post-materialism after all.

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