They who have put out the people’s eyes reproach them of their blindness. John Milton, ‘An Apology for Smectymnuus with the Reason of Church-Government’ (1642) Unfortunately I just missed out on meeting one of the…
Posts published by “David Langwallner”
I have previously quoted a passage from Noam Chomsky, which acutely surveys the post-structuralist origins of our present Post-Truth condition. These words are worth recalling once again: There are lots of things I don’t understand…
I especially enjoy visiting the Austrian side of my family around Salzkammergut during Christmas. The highlight is Little Christmas, or the Feast of the Epiphany, on January 6th best witnessed in the home town of…
George Orwell has never been unfashionable, and is in vogue now more than ever. His writing, best represented by his many essays on a variety of subjects, rather than the more celebrated novels, presage in…
It came as a surprise when the editor of Cassandra Voices divulged recently that he had never read any works by Jurgen Habermas (1929 – ), who I regard as a contender for the greatest…
A past competition, now sadly in abeyance, used to involve arguing over who was the greatest Irish intellect. The English held a similar competition some years ago and, unsurprisingly, chose Churchill ahead of Shakespeare. God…
But again, and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. Albert Camus, The Plague. Periodically, I am asked…
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently called for more stringent Internet privacy and election laws saying, ‘We need a more active role for governments and regulators.’[i] In advocating what amounts to censorship, he seems to have…
‘What is law?’ This is a fundamental question posed at the outset of any course in the philosophy of law. The standard form of response includes that it is a system of rules, according to…
I have previously warned that austerity economics and moral relativism are giving rise to a new fascism, last seen between the World Wars. First published in English in 1926, perhaps the most influential text of…
It was flattering to read Fintan O’Toole respond, however oblique, to my criticism of his generally hysterical book on Brexit. In an Irish Times article on February 19th he claims the English eccentricity I praised…
As a freshly UK-embedded Irish barrister I am adjusting from confronting Ireland’s problems to addressing those of my new home. Worlds’apart, in a global village. In terms of Brexit, as far as the Irish media…
In his autobiography– in itself an unusual exercise for a lawyer – Geoffrey Robertson QC, refers to himself as a ‘Baby Boomer’, and devotes a chapter to that generation. Although of Generation X myself, we…
On a recent visit to Athens I chanced upon the supposed tomb of Socrates near the Acropolis. Socrates chose to remain in the city after being found guilty on trumped up charges of corrupting youth.…
Morality is the basis of things and truth is the basis of all morality. Mahatma Gandhi Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani was recently asked whether his boss had a case to answer arising from the…
Leonard Cohen’s ‘Tower of Song’ is a short history, and valedictory, to the tradition of songwriting, fusing aphorisms and personal reflections on failure with nostalgia and regret. In this ‘Tower’, like that of Babel, the…
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), U.S. President between 1933 and 1945, was born to enormous privilege. He came from one of the most aristocratic families in America, a distant cousin, Teddy, had even been elected President.…
Donald Trump’s former confidante Steve Bannon has been on a latter-day American Grand Tour around Europe. But rather than making his peace ‘With learned Italian things / And the proud stones of Greece’, he embarked…
The great Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities imagines a conversation between the Mongolian emperor Kubla Khan and the legendary traveller Marco Polo. Kubla Khan asks Marco Polo to describe for him the great cities he…
Irish Eyes Unsmiling: Have I Got News For You Brexit-Election Special!
Bob Hope once wisecracked: ‘the choice between Carter and Regan was not so much the choice of the lesser of two evils, as the evil of two lessers.’ In Brexit-land that joke has transmuted into…