Most people seem happy to harness the power of shame when the victims are the rich and powerful. But our attitudes to shame are actually much more ambivalent and contradictory. That’s why it was a stroke of genius to call Paul Abbott’s Channel Four series Shameless. We are at a point in our social history where the word is perfectly poised between condemnation and celebration.
ReadWhenever western meat-eaters get up in arms over barbarous foreigners eating cute animals, it’s easy to throw around accusations of gross hypocrisy. Easy, because such accusations are often true. But responses to the dog meat festival in Yulin, China, which draws to a close today, merit more careful consideration. The double standards at play here are numerous, complicated, and not always obvious…
ReadThe central purpose of religion has historically been a change of heart, not a change in the world. Modern politics has things entirely the other way around: the state’s job is to change society and it oversteps its mark if it tries to alter the minds of the people.
ReadVegetarians have tended to see themselves as on the side of history, in the vanguard of moral progress. In their imagined future, meat-eating would be seen as being as barbarous as slavery, racism, homophobia and the subjugation of women. It seems much more likely, however, that we have already passed “peak vegetarianism” and that the movement has grown as large as it ever will.
ReadThe public image of charities has become dominated by their means, not their ends. When people think of charities today, they tend to think less of the good works they do than of direct mailings, cold calls and preternaturally chirpy young fundraisers accosting them on the street.
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