Media

TEDx: How offence culture stifles progress

by

Jess Butcher interviews Claire Fox about her book ‘I Find that Offensive’, exploring whether offence culture has become the dominant ideology of modern society and the damaging effects it has on debate, intellectual progress, and mental resilience.

The dangers of illiberal liberalism

by

Liberals who repress speech to prevent harm risk inviting authoritarianism writes Claire in the Economist. If ever there was a vivid illustration of illiberal liberalism, it was the response to one of the essays in this very series. After The Economist published an article by Kathleen Stock, reader in philosophy at the University of Sussex, which sensitively questioned whether … Read more

Al Jazeera: Is the UK still racist?

by

Claire debates writer Afua Hirsch on whether transcending racial identities is possible in the UK. According to journalist Afua Hirsch, “discussing race in contemporary Britain is still a radical act.” In her latest book, Brit(ish), Hirsch argues that the UK has failed to reckon with its colonial past and that conversations about race, ethnicity and diversity have been silenced. … Read more

What women want

by

In Spiked Online, Claire reviews Ella Whelan’s new book on the importance of putting freedom back into feminism. While writing this review, two newspaper pieces catch my eye that sum up today’s destructive sexual-politics zeitgeist. In the New York Times, author Stephen Marche applies pseudo-Freudianism to the Harvey Weinstein scandal, concluding ‘if you let boys be boys, they … Read more

Language barrier

by

“Since the EU referendum result last June our nation has been divided: not only by the vote but also by language. If 62 per cent of Britons (many of whom undoubtedly voted for Brexit) now say Britain ‘sometimes feels like a foreign country’, it’s not anti-foreigner prejudice so much as a feeling that people in … Read more