I never met the late Queen Elizabeth. I did, however, once try to bar Charles’s entry to the Cambridge Union Debating Society… There has been predictable criticism of UK Royalty for failing to denounce slavery, colonialism, class inequality, etc. but this misunderstands constitutional monarchy. ..we often have to look at the monarch’s actions and symbols.… Read More »
…including the statement that “The eastward expansion of NATO is a provocation…”. While this does not lead the President to condone the Russian response, his argument is a general one against war rather than a specific criticism of colonial ambition. At least by implication, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has, in his text, some measure… Read More »
…Even a monarch cannot countermand the fundamentals of the universe. This is a lesson that some still struggle with in considering the goals of clinical medicine and public health. If they only had enough money, power and time, biomedical scientists could eliminate infection and, at least by implication, allow humans to live forever. Philosophers, ethicists… Read More »
I am not a member of Collateral Global, but they were sufficiently interested in what a sociologist might have to say about pandemics as to invite me to be interviewed by Jennie Bristow, another UK sociologist, on their behalf. We discussed the role of the historical and sociological imagination in making sense of the past… Read More »
An editorial in the British Medical Journal has called for a reappraisal of the criticism of overtreatment by Ivan Illich, a commentator on cultural issues who had a considerable influence in the late 1960s and 1970s. My response notes that this part of Illich’s work relies on reflexive work by the medical profession itself. Focussing… Read More »
In 1953, Sociological Review published a paper by two distinguished sociologists, Edward Shils and Michael Young, reviewing the ritual aspects of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. They argued that these enacted and celebrated the fundamental moral values that restrained egotism and held societies together…the [Jubilee] celebrations also pushed back against the sub-Ayn Rand selfishness… Read More »
‘Judge me in a year’ said Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s State Epidemiologist, in July 2020, when his country was being attacked for sticking to its pandemic plan rather than adopting the novel intervention of lockdown. The latest World Health Organization figures add to the evidence that has been accumulating since summer 2021. Sweden managed the pandemic… Read More »
A podcast interview with Professor Linda Mulcahy about the role of observational research in socio-legal studies, drawing on our shared history with the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies going back to the 1980s. Videos
As we pass two years from the beginnings of the pandemic, many commentators are scrambling to distance themselves from their initial responses, especially where these promoted approaches like Zero-Covid. This is an interview that I gave to an online magazine aimed at older people and carers on 7 April 2020… Would I change anything, given… Read More »
A year ago, we in the UK were approaching Christmas and New Year with quiet optimism as the first Covid vaccines rolled out into the NHS. Light was appearing at the end of a long dark tunnel. Sadly, that hope was extinguished by the emergence of Covid variants, first alpha and later delta. Much of… Read More »