Universities
Free speech: we should try it again
We must sweep aside today’s pervasive fearfulness. Instead we should feel free to offend — and not take offence when others treat us equally robustly
I regret to inform you …
An Admissions Don at a major British university lays bare the quota-driven process of student selection and imagines what honest acceptance and rejection letters may look like
Death by degrees
The dream of the university is being killed by greed, dogma and bureaucracy
The benefits of learning from home
The British model of a residential “university experience” saddles students with unnecessary debt and severs their links with their communities
The dilution of trauma
Exaggerating emotional struggles weakens our resilience
The perils of a young academic
Students must take on academic groupthink
The subversion of Athena Swan
How trans activists turn public funding to push their agenda
Oh, the humanities
Not your average masturbatory scholarship
An alternative to higher ed
We need more paths for young people
The myth of liberal neutrality
The culture war in our universities is sweeping away cherished illusions
Democracy contra the majority
What does democracy mean if it is not related to the popular will?
The grim reality of a citizens’ assembly
A seemingly democratic initiative was nothing of the sort
Essential all-embracing warmth
Gidon Kremer: Songs of Fate (ECM)
It’s the only one for me, nicotine
Once again, public health fanaticism is being prioritised over simple pleasures
Cognition porn and discursive dehumanisation
Cultural and political discourse can follow the reductive yet seductive logic of pornography
They like her when she’s angry
Kemi Badenoch is the Incredible Hulk of government ministers, roaring her way through the public realm, smashing opponents left and right
Ferrari and the terrible joy
Michael Mann’s Ferrari shows how ambiguity and contradiction fuels us
Eyes on the prizes
On a dispiriting start to racing’s “Premierisation” era
The dangerous excesses of breaking boundaries
There is a double standard on trans people and violence
Saving London from the czar
London’s nightlife could be great — but it needs real change
Introducing Critical Mash
Our new arts podcast, broadcasting from the frontline of the (high) culture war
