Henrik Berggren – Underbara dagar framför oss, En biografi över Olof Palme (2010) The social democrat Olof Palme represented a strain of American post-war liberalism, imported into Swedish politics in the shape of an upper-class golden boy. His sharp mind and sharper tongue got him hand-picked into the political elite at a young age, happily […]
Discussing a new book (The Lucifer Effect) by Philip Zimbardo, the social psychologist Professor Nussbaum ended on an upbeat note: “Let us hope that The Lucifer Effect, which confronts us with the worst in ourselves, stimulates a critical conversation that will lead to more sensible and less arrogant strategies for coping with our human weakness.” […]
It is a conspicous feature of democracy, as it evolves from generation to generation, that it leads people increasingly to take up public positions on the private affairs of others. Wherever people discover that money is being spent, either privately or by public officials, they commonly develop opinions on how it ought to be spent. […]
Self-hatred in the West is a strange and indeed puzzling thing. It seems to happen when loyalty to one’s own cultural heritage is transferred to an ideal location. A common explanation offers guilt as the psychological dynamic of cultural self-alienation, but it is not at all clear what the average European should feel guilty for, […]
A democratic assembly tends to understand legislation as a command addressed to the people. This accords, no doubt, with our common talk about “obeying the law”. We talk of laws “forbidding” certain kinds of conduct and “encouraging” others. Sometimes, indeed, laws are thought to be a signaling system, entities that “send a message.” Strictly speaking, […]
In responding to the blizzard of regulation to which we are subjected, we are sometimes lulled into thinking that all human beings seek freedom by nature, and that our liberal ways are merely an expression of this natural human passion that has at last been liberated from oppressors. No glance at history, and especially at […]