By: Caroline Brooks I was a school student when the British military invaded Iraq in 2003. In the midst of all the rumours, hysteria, and speculation I realised that this …
The Bane of Complexity
“The more complex the functions which the state assumes, the more subordinate the bureaucrats on whom the citizen’s fortune depends.” – Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Colombian writer I recently had a …
Empty Words with Deadly Consequences
In an excellent article in the New York Times, Christy Wampole, Associate Professor at Princeton University, explains how abstractions in politics can have deadly consequences. She suggests that generalized concepts …
Lebanon (and Chile and Iraq) are an example to us all
This image says it almost all. A proposed tax on WhatsApp calls and suddenly there is a revolutionary movement. As it demonstrates, there were many other issues, and much build …
Black Box Thinking
The great British economist John Maynard Keynes is reputed to have once quipped to someone, “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?” In his …
The People vs. Tech
POWER cuts can have their advantages. Recently, when the electricity to my house failed for a few hours, I had a respite from being ‘plugged in’ to the digital world. …
Turning Down the Heat
As the political temperature rises across the world, John Bell, Ivan Tyrrell and John Zada explain why they founded The Conciliators Guild, and their hopes for it. TYRRELL: We are …
Q&A: Informal Mediation and Diplomacy
In the western world we’ve come to regard professional diplomats and mediators, often employed or supported by governments, as the main agents of international diplomacy. When these brokers fail to …
Sir John Glubb and the Fate of Empires
Sir John Bagot Glubb was a soldier, a white guy, and – in some ways, having created the Arab Legion in Jordan – a colonialist. These days, that’s three strikes …
The Righteous Mind
We are without doubt living in an era of polarised thinking, marked by much bickering across social and political lines. Although the tendency for humans to sort themselves along ideological …