The Perversity of Transgender Politics

It is such a strange phenomenon, Transgender Politics. It is built on the fantasy that human beings can voluntarily choose their gender. Many other aspects of our biological endowment are not challenged in such a way. I haven’t heard for example of brown-eyed people demanding that they should be called blue-eyed or short people demanding […]

Continue Reading

The Death of Charlie Kirk and the Erosion of Democracy.

Charlie Kirk died in a mindless, murderous attack that reflects a growing assault on our democracy. Democracy is built on the foundation of free speech and the vigorous intellectual competition of ideas. In democracies we shouldn’t seek to silence those who disagree with us. We should listen respectfully to their ideas and if we disagree, […]

Continue Reading

Remembering My Father

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are largely occasions created for commercial reasons to make us feel compelled to buy presents and increase retail sales. They are cynical manipulations of our inherent feelings (normally) of affection for our parents. I must confess that I was blessed with the parents I had. I loved and admired them […]

Continue Reading

The Existential Threat of Radical Islamism

It is a strange quirk of the human condition that we almost universally romanticise the past. T H White captured the sentiment in his lovely book The Once and Future King. The myth of King Arthur and Camelot reflect our desire to reclaim an idealised past. As in many such myths (including the Christian one) […]

Continue Reading

Work and Meaning


I have written extensively of the importance of our spiritual needs and the necessity of humans to have a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. Traditionally many of us found meaning and purpose in our lives through our religion, our family or our contribution to the community. But such institutions are now in […]

July 22, 2017

Energy Trauma


I don’t watch much television. It presents me with an unenviable choice. Do I watch commercial television and be assailed with endless, brain-numbing, intellectually demeaning advertisements? Or should I watch ad-free ABC to be lectured by left-wing advocates, Greens’ politicians and committed virtue signallers? Faced with such a choice I watch a little news and […]

July 15, 2017

Being Homo Spiritualis


I have often thought that the Latin title for human beings, Homo Sapiens, is perhaps not the most appropriate name for our species. It was bestowed on humans because of their ability to reason. Quite often our reasoning processes leave something to be desired and despite our large brain and reasoning capacity it does not […]

July 8, 2017

Courage and Fear


You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. What is to give light must endure the burning. Eleanor Roosevelt   This week marked the funeral of South Australian nurse, Kirsty Boden, who was […]

July 1, 2017

A Little More on Identity and Religion.


The German born, American psychologist, Erick Erickson probably was the first to popularise the concept of personal identity and its role in the psychological development of human beings. He posited that the acquisition of a sense of personal identity was generally a feature of the adolescent years (those aged roughly between 13 and 19 years) […]

June 24, 2017

One Mind


A long time ago, There was only one mind Which became bored by being alone so long. So it decided to split into two, But since the two knew they were originally one, Playing together was not much fun – As if playing both sides of a chess game, So the two minds agreed to […]

June 11, 2017

Countering the Jihadists


Last week we saw another Jihadist manufacture slaughter and mayhem, this time principally of young women and girls, in Manchester. Manchester has been a particularly troubled area. It has experienced riots, is replete with street gangs and has been home for a number of other Jihadists who have perpetrated atrocities. I have recently written about […]

June 3, 2017

The Future of Work


The study of the world of work has always held its fascinations for me. My management career revolved about changing workplaces, and I was always keen to have an understanding of the evolving nature of work to inform my management practices. To better understand where the world of work was going, I visited as many […]

May 27, 2017

Fifth Wave Jihadis


Over the decades we have seen a vast change in the nature of jihadism. In a recent piece, writer and commentator, Kenan Malik, identified the following five iterations of jihadism. The first wave of jihadis were the mujahedeen who were marshalled to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The second wave were elite Muslims from […]

May 20, 2017

Time and Again


My friend and I were having one of our chats over a glass of wine as we have done for some years. We were discussing some material written by the good Dr Phil. It was a testing hypothesis involving spirituality and quantum physics. It is amazing what a rich recursive tapestry such considerations weave. In […]

May 13, 2017