Tag: Politics & society

Modern art: I could have done that… so I did

Articles & Essays

Be honest. If thinking “I could have done that” while walking around a contemporary art exhibition is the mark of a philistine, aren’t you a philistine, too? I know I am. Much as we may know that it’s not as easy as it looks to create a decent artwork, there are times when we come across something so simple, so unimpressive, and so devoid of technical merit that we just can’t help believing we could have done as well or better ourselves. What perhaps makes me unusual is not that I entertain such thoughts, but that I did go off and try doing it myself…

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The social animal

Articles & Essays

Human beings are born social. We live in families, tribes and nations, and increasingly as part of an interconnected global community. The problem is that these groups make different and often competing demands on us. We may well be social animals but our habitats are changing, and we haven’t yet adapted to them.

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On avoiding rare risks

Articles & Essays

Psychologists and risk experts are always telling us that we fixate far too much on unusual dangers and not enough on the hazards that we confront every day. The Glasgow helicopter crash will no doubt provide another opportunity to highlight our supposed irrationality as people demand inquiries to avoid a repeat of an accident that killed at least eight people, while five people die every day on the UK’s roads. But is it really illogical to worry about unusual causes of death and serious injury? I’m not convinced it is…

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