tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43939512797514896632024-09-05T05:50:51.177+01:00Bitesize chunks of current affairs, politics, history, philosophy, and miscellanyAbercrombyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03393732734885780413noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4393951279751489663.post-6103053941710802622009-01-24T09:40:00.003+00:002009-02-08T06:28:53.826+00:00

Let me at once say I think democracy is broadly a good thing -- and optimistically, a very good thing. My worry here would be better expressed in terms of a distrust of utilitarianism and baldly utility-based decision-making. One of the problems with utilitarianism, I think, is that people are often too incurious about a) other people's interests b) other alternatives to those presented, to make

Abercrombyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03393732734885780413noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4393951279751489663.post-26577768914794281342009-01-22T08:56:00.015+00:002009-02-08T06:22:21.065+00:00

This is one of the most basic logical fallacies, yet the frequency with which it is wittingly and unwittingly made is astonishing. Appeal to authority is basically the fallacy committed when an individual is cited as 'proving' a position, merely by the weight of his or her authority, and assumed competency on the subject matter. It takes this form:Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on

Abercrombyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03393732734885780413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4393951279751489663.post-68778503030849826152007-04-26T15:29:00.000+01:002007-04-28T17:18:10.952+01:00

Who speaks for Islam? More to the point, who speaks for Political Islam? I’d say whichever answer is apt for the first question should fit the second too. And that answer is not one name but many, though their voices may sound exactly alike to untrained ears. By this I mean the western perception of Islam as a political force is gravely ill-informed, primarily in that Western minds see a

Abercrombyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03393732734885780413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4393951279751489663.post-749219468608434062007-04-26T12:56:00.000+01:002007-04-26T12:57:12.054+01:00

Among all the great crimes of history – the wars, the genocides, the systematic rape of nature – one great crime has passed unnoticed. It is the crime of deicide. The American journalist H. L Mencken described this oddity in cultural evolution in his Treatise on the Gods. Once we exalted the gods; we built monuments to their great names and beseeched their blessing, prayed for their protection

Abercrombyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03393732734885780413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4393951279751489663.post-21052619089042590262007-04-26T12:51:00.000+01:002007-04-27T13:06:34.150+01:00

The founding premise of the EU was economic and political insofar as economic integration was to presage political integration into a "United States of Europe". I contend that both premises are no longer relevant. Economic integration was arguably a good idea and its benefits are easily apparent and will continue to be. Social rights and European Citizenship are also welcome benefits of the EU.

Abercrombyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03393732734885780413noreply@blogger.com0