Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Jordan Peterson vs. Slavoj Zizek: who won?
Hyped to be a colossal collision of right and left-wing thought, the debate offered only a single major insight: one of the belligerents was a lazy fraud, write GEORGE WEST and ALEXANDER NORTON
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
OPENING up, greasy, lobster-venerating psychologist-cum-public-figure Jordan Peterson revelled in the fact that ticket touts were charging more for this clash of supposed intellectual heavyweights than they were for the for the ice-hockey final taking place down the road.
The audience whooped and cheered — surely they were in for a treat, or even part of something historic: had philosophy become the new rock ’n’ roll? Or would they be able to say: “I was there” when right slew left — or vice versa?
In a word — no. One minor truth of our time would be revealed, but through the paucity of the debate rather than its profundity.
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