Thought for the Day - BBC Radio Bristol

Text of this morning's thought, and below that, the thought for the week before. You can listen to this week's here, at 2h 50m 48s, where I am introduced, not for the first time, as Julian Baggiani...

Is the search for the Christmas No1 Album over already? We now know that one of the hottest releases of the season is set to be Voice: Chant From Avignon, by the The Nuns of the Abbaye de Notre-Dame de l'Annonciation, the follow up to the million-selling Chant: Music For Paradise by the Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz.

The nuns were the winners of a reality-TV style international star search, in which 70 convent choirs around the world were auditioned. Religious music, it seems, has the X-Factor.

This might all seem a bit tacky, but in a sense, religion has always been involved in popularity contests. All belief systems are: either they attract enough followers or they die out. And the competition is relentless. Over the centuries, religions and philosophies have risen and fallen in popularity, generating new off-shoots all the time.

The problem with popularity contests is that the winners aren't always the best. Indeed, although the most popular version of anything – beers, songs, television programmes – can be excellent, it often appeals to the lowest common denominator. Success only requires being as appealing as possible to as many people as possible.

Given that, a worrying question arises for all of us: do we believe what we believe because it is the most appealing option in front of us, the one that pushes the right buttons; or do we believe it because it is actually most likely to be true? Take your time before you answer. Phone a friend. The answer matters: this is not just about casting a vote in a reality TV show, this is about casting our lot in the real world.

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Bed-blocking and lack of capacity has been an issue in the NHS for many years. Now, however, the same problems are being encountered by some of our furry friends in St Phillips. The RSPCA there is at “bursting point”. A backlog of healthy strays – which all need to be thoroughly checked before being re-homed – has left no room for the sick and injured.

This is the kind of story which tugs at the heartstrings, in this nation of animal lovers. But do we worry too much about animal welfare, and not enough about the sick, poor and starving human beings that surround is?

Some of the statistics suggest we might. Every years. Britons give the same amount to animals charities as they do to the disabled. We give only three-quarters this amount to the elderly and half to the homeless.

In our defence, this still amounts to just one pound in twelve of annual charitable giving. I'm not sure if this proportion is exactly right, but the fact that we do worry about the welfare of other creatures does reflect well on us. Cynics may say we're only nice to our fellow humans on the principle that only by scratching other backs will we get our own itches dealt with, but when we help animals, we do so knowing that we are going to get nothing in return: Tiddles won't take you to hospital; when you fall ill.

By caring for creatures simply because we recognise their suffering and want to do something to relieve it, we show ourselves to be species that is, uniquely, capable of pure, unselfish love. And if we can show that to animals, then there's no reason why we can't show it to our fellow human beings as well.

No one is an ethical expert: long live ethical expertise

I've had an essay published in the book Ethiek in discussie: Praktijkvoorbeelden van ethische expertise (Discussing Ethics: The Practice of ethical expertise), edited by Mariette van den Hoven, Lieke van der Scheer, Dick Willems (red.). All the other chapters are in Dutch. Full details about the book here.

Growing old

I neglected to post abut an article I had in April's Psychologies magazine about ageing. It's not available online, but here's a decent chunk of it.

Even some of the aspects of ageing that we usually lament might not be all bad. Consider sex and libido. “You can’t make love at eighty the way you did at twenty — so what?” said the American philosopher Cornel West. “Does that make you a failure? Hell no!”

Perhaps we should even see the retreat of libido as a positive. “How comforting it is to have tired out one's appetites, and to have done with them!” wrote Seneca in a letter on ageing that should be issued to every pensioner with her bus pass. In Plato's Republic, the old poet Sophocles is quoted as saying, “I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master.” Far from being an affliction, the decline of desire is seen as offering a “great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold.”

Even failing memory can be accepted as par for the course. People who can joke about their “senior moments” seem to me to be much more at ease with themselves than those who take every lapse as signs of encroaching dementia.

One of the worst curses of age is regret. Every proverb, saying or quotation on the subject may tell us that it is a waste of time, but it can be hard to put the advice into practice. It can help to remind ourselves that we simply don't know whether things would have been better had they turned out the way we wanted them to. Montaigne, for instance, confessed that once he had desired “to have a son-in-law that knew handsomely how to cherish my old age, and to rock it asleep.” But he soon realised that “we live in a world where loyalty of one's own children is unknown,” which is even truer today than it was back in the sixteenth century.

If we're honest, we need to accept that some aspects of decay and decline have no redeeming features. Even so, we should remember that those hobbling along on dodgy hips are lucky to have got that far. Long life is not something we have any right to expect, and should we be granted it, to then complain that it's not as comfortable as we'd like it to be is somewhat churlish. It was only after the second world war that most people lived beyond their half century, and even today, millions don't make it that far. Everyone reading this will know at least one person, and probably many more, who were taken prematurely by accident or illness. The best way to respect their memory is to cherish each day we have, remembering how fortunate we are to have the irritations of age to grumble about.

Who Are We?

"Gary Younge steers a course between two unacceptable extremes: the naive denial that identity matters and the dangerous assertion that it matters above all else. Most of the ideas he puts forward have been formulated elsewhere, as his quotations from the likes of Stuart Hall, Alasdair MacIntyre and Amartya Sen attest. But what Younge’s book achieves which more academic treatises do not is that it makes the abstract concrete, showing us rather than just telling us how identity matters in the lives of people around the world."

Review of Gary Younge's new book in this weekend's FT

July Podcast

This edition includes a report from the 2010 Philosophers’ Football Match, where I talk to AC Grayling, Laurie Taylor, comedian Mark Steel, former England manager Graham Taylor, and many more. Find out what the tribute to the famous Monty Python sketch was really about. Plus, there’s an interview with historian and philosopher of science Jay Kennedy, whose claim to have cracked “The Plato Code” is provoking an international scholarly debate.
Click here to listen or download now from

Complaint podcast

George Miller of Podularity has produced a new podcast for Blackwell, in which he interviews me about my book Complaint, which is now out in paperback. You can listen to it here.

Guardian Daily podcast

I contributed to yesterday's (15 July) edition, which you can listen to here.

Don't complain less – do it better

"The ability of citizens to make effective complaints is basic to a just democracy and a fair society. Only in a country where that ability is taken for granted could complaints about too much complaint be given wide credence."

Latest post at Comment is Free

Thought for the day - BBC Radio Bristol

Text of this morning's thought. You can listen to it here at 2h 43m 58s

The World Cup came to its conclusion yesterday with one winning goal, but also with 46 fouls, a record 13 yellow cards and one red. That was sadly in keeping with a tournament that will also be remembered for its ludicrous quantities of cheating. It's hard to say what the biggest problem was: players fouling or players pretending to be fouled.

How has football become such a dishonest game? It is not, surely, because footballers are particularly deceitful people in general. Nor can it be put down to a lack of religion in world soccer: numerous players crossed themselves before taking the pitch or pointed heavenwards when they scored, but on the field they seemed to be no more honest than any others.

The simple explanation seems to be that players cheat because the rewards for doing so are high, the punishments light, and the chances of being caught low. Plus, when everyone else is doing it, it seems crazy not to follow suit.

In this respect, I fear football is not so different to the rest of life. That might sound pessimistic, but it reflects something important about what it truly means to be good. It means doing the right thing even when everyone else is doing wrong; behaving well when you could get away with behaving badly; doing what you should do, when no one can see you doing it, not even a God. If we follow the rules in fear of the red card we are neither good nor bad, merely prudent. If we want to be good, we should not play to the whistle – we should just play fair.

Sunday - BBC Radio Four

I was on briefly this programme yesterday talking about happiness with a gnostic. You can listen again here until next Sunday. The item starts at 13m 22s.

The dark heart of Toy Story

"It would not have surprised me to have seen the credits of Toy Story 3 announce, 'Based on an original idea by Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre'. True, you can't imagine a Camus character being called Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear, but you can imagine the great French existentialist penning sobering lines like 'we're all just trash waiting to be thrown away,' and 'You think you're special? You're a piece of plastic.'"

Article in The Times last Saturday (10th July). It's behind a pay wall, alas, attached to Jonathan Ross's article on the film.

Don't eat animals? - London, 9 December

Taking part in an Inteligence Squared debate, speaking against the motion with:
Robin Dunbar: Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Oxford University and author of "The Human Story and How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbar's Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks
Paul Levy: Food writer, broadcaster and editor of "The Penguin Book of Food and Drink"

Speaking for the motion:
Abbas Daneshvari: Professor of Art History at California State University
Heather Mills: Campaigner and fundraiser for animal rights and other charitable causes
Peter Singer: Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and author of the 1975 book "Animal Liberation", widely considered to be the founding statement of the animal liberation movement

Chair: Simon Jenkins: Author, columnist on the Guardian and Evening Standard, and chairman of the National Trust

Full details here

Kingston Publishing Conference - 3 September

I'm giving a keynote speech on whether writing is the route to fulfillment and this conference in south London. Full programme and registration details are here.

Today - BBC Radio Four

I was talking about "deep thought" with Ray Tallis and John Humphrys this morning. You can listen to the seven-minute item here.

What is deep thought?

"Deep thought requires reinvention, not revival. To the noble traditions of slow thought, we need to add the best the fast-paced information age can offer. We need to balance breadth and depth, so that what is valued is the volume of wisdom in the lake, not just its reach at its deepest point. To do this we must look forwards, backwards and sideways. Gove's ambition is a good one, but it seems he hasn't thought deeply enough about what it really is, or how to achieve it."

Article in today's Independent

Images from the Tour de France

"The bicycle is a reminder of a fleeting phase in human development when a genuine harmony of people, technology and nature was still possible."

A few words to introduce some pictures from the Tour de France in this weekend's FT Magazine.

The Philosopher & The Bishop - Edinburgh, 21 August

"Is the ‘Golden Rule’ to treat others as you would be treated yourself a religiously inspired principle or an innate human ethic? Is it a call to other-centredness or self-centredness? Julian Baggini editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine and author of Atheism: A Very Short Introduction discusses uses and abuses of the Golden Rule with Bishop Brian Smith."

10.30am – 11.30am at St John’s. Tickets available here.

Edinburgh Book Festival - 18 August

Talking about Should You Judge This Book by Its Cover? at 3.30. Full details here.

Newshour - BBC World Service

Talking about Jay Kennedy's Plato Code yesterday. You can download the podcast here. The item is about 1/3 of the way in.