Google's chief says privacy is dying. But does the Facebook generation care?

"Google boss Eric Schmidt warned this week that when they grow up, many young people are going to want to change their names, so desperate will they be to dissociate themselves from the trail of personal revelations they are casually leaving behind them on the web. It is ironic that the same digital culture that is accused of shortening attention spans is keeping our past selves alive and present for much longer than the analogue, biological world ever could. We are hurling thousands of digital boomerangs out into cyberspace, not realising that, it might take years, but they will return. This willing surrender of privacy seems shocking to many. But what is so wrong with this data promiscuity?"

Article in yesterday's Independent

What are exams for? That's the hard question.

"Why should we care more about level of difficulty than we do about whether syllabuses are interesting; or provide children with knowledge that will enrich them for the rest of their lives; or enable them to apply what they learn outside the classroom; or help them to become informed, engaged citizens; or any number of other goods education can provide? At this time of year we become so focused on the question difficulty that we seem to think that the real purpose of education is to erect a kind of intellectual obstacle course in order to separate the chaff from the wheat."

Article in The Times (18 August) available only behind pay wall

The Uses of Pessimism

"Scruton has a knack for identifying the truths in conservatism that both supporters and critics would do well to attend to. The Uses of Pessimism is the latest of his defences of a traditional Toryism that would resonate more with the Marquess of Salisbury, the 19th-century conservative prime minister, than with Cameron or Thatcher. This is characterised by a cheerful pessimism, which doubts our capacity to greatly improve our lot but which holds that 'the world is, in fact, a much better place than the optimists allow.'"

Review of Roger Scruton's latest book in the FT Weekend (14/15 August)

Goodbye Cohesive Communities, Hello Successful Neighbourhoods

"It seems to me that by “social cohesion” we minimally mean, to return to our first metaphor, a social fabric that holds together. But potential exemplars of this vary enormously, from very tightly-knit communities to much looser ones. This is how it should be. It should not be the goal of policy-makes to determine just how closely interwoven the lives of citizens are. People should be allowed to be as independent as they want to be, consistent with society holding together.

"Similar thoughts arise when you consider the word “community”. It evokes warm feelings of village fetes, neighbourhood watch schemes and communal allotments. But, again, this kind of close living with others is not for everyone. Public bodies should certainly allow such communities to flourish, but it is not their business to turn every street into prime exemplars."

Contribution to a collection essays exploring the future of the public and not-for-profit sectors over the next ten years. Full text available as PDF here.

Why won’t I read your work?

"To whom it may concern: I’m sorry to address you in such an impersonal way, but I get quite a few letters and emails of the kind you sent me, and I thought I should take the time to explain at length, once and for all, why it won’t be getting the reply you hope for..."

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