The Russian born, British philosopher and essayist, Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay on Tolstoy’s view of history which he titled The Hedgehog and the Fox. The title comes from a fragment attributed to the Greek poet, Archilochus, who purportedly wrote, “The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing”. The fox, […]
A quick read of the morning papers leaves us in no doubt that this is a federal election year. Announcements, rebuttals, claims and counter-claims are starting to fill the newspaper columns. I suppose at least in the papers there is a little more substance and some reasonable analysis. On the television all we see is […]
It is good to be exposed to a range of viewpoints. We learn from being challenged and having our horizons widened. But this can’t happen if we automatically close our minds to what we don’t want to hear. The other morning I sat with one of my fellow directors on a board that I belong […]
It is with some trepidation that I confront my task of writing this week’s blog. As you can see from the title, I have decided to expound on writing. Whilst I have co-authored a couple of books and written one outright, I won’t mislead you by pretending I’m a best selling author. Disappointingly, sales of […]
It is said that a rabbi who had lost one of his two daughters in a fatal accident, wrote to Albert Einstein. The Rabbi requested Einstein to provide some words of wisdom to help his remaining daughter as she mourned her sister. He wrote this famous reply. “A human being is a part of the […]
I have watched with fascination, as no doubt many of you have, the development of the debate on climate change. It is strange that science, promoted by its major adherents as being objective, dispassionate (and using that awful but now ubiquitous term) “evidenced based” could result in such subjective, passionate and unsubstantiated claims by both […]
It has been distressing in recent times to witness the debates in the press about access to children for separating partners. We hear of children murdered by one partner merely to deprive the other. We hear of children pushed and pulled between households without seemingly any concern for their welfare. We despair for such children. […]
This week I’d like to explore the concept of ignorance with my readers. Like many words there is a certain ambiguity about ignorance. Often we use the term simply to mean a lack of knowledge about a subject or an issue. This kind of ignorance is tolerated because it occurs largely as a matter of […]
Some years ago, I remember reading how in the Napoleonic Wars the British Government created a position for someone to man a bonfire on the cliffs of Dover. His job was to light the bonfire if he saw the French fleet approaching so that the British might prepare for an attempt at invasion. Apparently that […]
In an essay called What Makes You Not a Buddhist Tibetan teacher Dzongsar Khyentse stated that: If you cannot accept that all compounded or fabricated things are impermanent, if you believe that there is some essential substance or concept that is permanent, then you are not a Buddhist. Whether you want to be a Buddhist, […]