In this series of posts, I'm going to explore a figure who appeared to me in my dreams when I was about 20 and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I'm going to suggest that this figure helps us unlock one of the functions of the arts - to hold a mirror up to a civilisation and show it all that it's forgotten or left out.
Read MoreI'm enjoying Virginia Nicholson's book, Among The Bohemians, with its tales of bohemian experiments in living at the beginning of the 20th century. I particularly enjoyed David Garnett's account of the strange love triangle between the poet Robert Graves, his mistress the poet Laura Riding, and the young poet Geoffrey Phibbs:
Read MoreI've just been at a three-day seminar at the Institute for Government, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to help academics learn how to influence public policy. The seminar brought together 15 academics in disciplines ranging from literary criticism to design and urban planning.
Read MoreLast night was the first session in the new Philosophy For Life course at Queen Mary, University of London. It was a full-house, with the Lock-Keeper's Cottage proving a great venue, and just about fitting everyone in. The audience was roughly one third undergrads, one third postgrads, and one third members of the public. Huge thanks to Rupert Jones for helping me out. Below are some photos from the event.
Read MoreToday, some archeologists excavated the skeleton of Crookback Dick, also known as Richard III:
Read MoreI'm reading John Carey's book, The Intellectual and the Masses, and enjoying it. I came across this awful review of the book by Roger Kimball, the cultural conservative, who completely fails to see the book's merits. In it, he quotes Hannah Arendt approvingly:
Read MoreOur lives are economies of pleasure, made of habitual ways of trying to feel good. If we want to change ourselves we have, as it were, to reform our habitual structures of pleasure and build new structures. We must change the ways that we get pleasure, and perhaps deny ourselves pleasure in the habitual forms in which we get it, in order to get pleasure in new ways.
Read MoreThis is a weird time to be alive. To live now is to have the occasional consciousness that our planet is heading for a monumental shift in climate, which is likely to make existence much harder for billions of people in the future.
Read MoreHere are some pics of me speaking at Woking Library:
Read MoreThis is a brilliant talk and a brilliant animation.
Read MoreHere are my top ten tips for recovering from mental illness. Tell me any really good tips I've missed out in the comments. They're not commandments, just what worked for me in recovering from social anxiety and minor depression - feel free to disagree. And although I don't mention medication, because I personally didn't use it, I know lots of people find that a helpful part of the recovery process - and an essential one if you suffer from a serious psychotic condition.
Read MoreThere's an interview with me in de Volksrant, a Dutch newspaper, published today. The very nice interviewer asked me about an experience I described right at the end of the book, which was sort of a near-death experience I think.
Read MorePaul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, The Master, tells the story of drifter Joaquin Phoenix’s relationship with the head of a New Age sect, which looks suspiciously like Scientology. The group, called The Cause, aims (like Scientology) to clear its members of the karmic traces of their past lives, and return them to their inherent perfection. They do this by hypnotising their members to retrace their past incarnations, or by subjecting them to a b
Read MoreThanks to A Very Good Company for organising a great event.
Read MoreOne of the most unchallenged and unexamined narratives in our culture is that the culture is dumbing down. High culture is disappearing beneath the toxic sludge of reality TV. The dark ages are around the corner. We are in the End Times, culturally speaking.
Read MoreAn academic got in touch with me last week, inviting me to a seminar on Stoicism, which was nice of him. On the seminar programme, he described me as 'an author of books on happiness'. Alas I've only written one book (one that was published anyway), and it's strange to have it described as 'on happiness'.
Read MoreDoes philosophy still matter?
Read MoreBelow is a video of a place on Second Life called The Philosophy Garden, set up by Portland community College. I'm not a big Second Lifer myself, but am curious - do any of my readers know of other philosophy groups, schools, cafes or communities that exist in massive multiplayer online games like SL? Let me know if you do, it would be useful for my research on philosophy clubs. Tnx.
Read MoreHi everyone, sorry for the lack of blog-posts and newsletters the last couple of weeks - I'm on holiday in Venezuela, travelling around and visiting the rather beautiful beach below, and will resume normal service next week. Thanks to all the people who've recently signed up to the newsletter - we've now passed the 1,000 mark of subscribers!
Read MoreHere are some quotes from my favourite living artist, David Lynch, about the creative process. They're from Chris Rodley's book, Lynch on Lynch:
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