Political philosophy

When future historians look back at our world today, they will regard it as the end of an era. Over the space of just a few years, the fundamentals of our political and economic order have all changed.

We need less nice and more candour. It is pointless holding conferences where delegates censor their own presentations without being told to.

Let us celebrate the relative civility of our domestic politics and defend robust and constructive debates.

Haidt is one of America’s most important and innovative thinkers, contributing regularly to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. With his plea for people to disagree more constructively with one another, he has an important message for New Zealand as we deal with our own divisions.

It had to take an evolutionary psychologist and a lawyer to dissect (some of) the craziness of modern society and polity. Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s new book The Coddling of the American Mind is required reading for anyone wishing to understand 21st century politics, not just in the US but globally.

Since New Zealand just had to discuss the meaning of free speech, perhaps it is worth defining what free speech is. And what it is not.

What would Kant have said about the burka ban?

The popularity of Corbyn, Trump and Sanders is a protest against the insiders of the political system, not a revolt against neoliberalism or sound economic management.