In recent years many have expressed a concern that Western individualism has created a society of atomised, isolated selves. At the same time, the values of personal choice and autonomy remain sacrosanct. Individualism is thus seen as both the great achievement and bane of Western civilisation.
ReadThere is nothing new in “playing God”, it’s just that we’re getting better at it.
ReadWe should always try to avoid reducing individual human beings to impersonal units of welfare, a dehumanisation which is utilitarianism at its worst. One way of doing this is simply to ask: if it were our lives or interests that were being sacrificed, should we accept it, however reluctantly?
ReadVideo of debate I took part in at How The Light Gets IN 2015, with Andrew Bowie, Edwina Currie and host Richard Coles.
ReadA balancing act needs to be pulled off, acknowledging what populism identifies correctly as deep problems in our politics while resisting the often conspiratorial details and simplistic, unworkable solutions. This requires neither dismissing the populists out of hand nor granting too much to them. Most of all, it requires making the case that society can only hold together and make progress if it adopts a more moderate, consensual, boring, mainstream kind of politics.
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