Social epidemiology never generates straightforward policy prescriptions. Even if we know something makes us live longer, we still have to ask if it is right to promote it. It might be that many features of more traditional societies, including religiosity and tight social relations, are good for health. But it does not follow that we can or should try to turn back the clock. That is a philosophical and political question, not one for epidemiology.
ReadTo rebuild belief in the power and value of truth, we can’t dodge its complexity. Truths can be and often are difficult to understand, discover, explain, verify. They are also disturbingly easy to hide, distort, abuse or twist. Often we cannot claim with any certainty to know the truth. We need to take stock of the various kinds of real and supposed truths out there and understand how to test their authenticity.
ReadTo think of queueing as morally superior is to confuse fairness with orderliness, a particularly British mistake. It is no coincidence that the golden age of queueing was when the class system was still rigidly in place. Queues offered reassuring images of egalitarianism when the reality was anything but.
ReadGovernments should be concerned with more than wealth, but they should steer clear of making subjective measurements of their citizens’ welfare. Rather than seek an alternative focus of measurement to wealth, we should instead seek to measure wealth better.
ReadThe banking crisis was a failing not wholly of others, but of our laws and our values. Some behaved worse than others, of course, but without a collective failure, these individual ones would not have been possible.
Read