Letters

I read Raymond Tallis's profile of Parmenides (January) on the Northern line. As I puzzled over the non-existence of "what-is-not," and how this means nothing can come into being, an announcement informed me that "this train will not be stopping at the next station." In the event, we did stop at the next station and I was able to alight. It's good to know Transport for London employs at least one philosopher.

Phil Vernon
Tunbridge Wells

Parmenides 2
16th January 2008

Raymond Tallis heaps praise on Parmenides's view of an essentially static universe, where change is but an illusion. He also mentions Heraclitus, who saw flux and change as the true reality. What can science say in this debate? Well, imagine any landscape viewed through time-lapse photography, with millions of years compressed into mere minutes. Geological formations will flow and swirl like the waves. Up the scale to billions of years and the flux will be even more dizzying. Heraclitus rules, OK?

Julius Wroblewski
British Columbia, Canada

Confessing to violence
25th November 2007

William Skidelsky's "Confessions" (December) is much more than an anecdote about a trivial violent action during his youth, for it serves as an insight into the psychology of terrorist actions. Skidelsky's decision to smash the menu cases of the restaurant he worked in was motivated, in his own words, by two factors—revenge for the "slights and humiliations" he had suffered at the restaurant, and to "impress a girl." Terrorist actions and motivations are analogous to Skidelsky's. Where his outrage was the result of trivial personal slights, the terrorist's anger is the result of cultural humiliation, often combined with direct personal degradation. Nowhere is this more evident than in the carnage following the occupation of Iraq over the past four years. We in the west are rightly horrified by the suicide bomber but, alas, we are often blind to what has made him what he is.

Ramez Ghazoul
Prestbury, Cheshire

Aiding Afghanistan
23rd January 2008

The debate between Sherard Cowper-Coles and Rory Stewart (January) gave a useful insight into the complexities involved in helping Afghanistan return to peace and viability. As an NGO which has been working in Afghanistan for 25 years, Afghanaid is concerned that despite Nato's military achievements in the south, insecurity is spreading elsewhere in the country. We agree with Stewart that not enough attention is given to "stable areas," where development work is still feasible. Afghanaid is working in three such provinces—Ghor, Samangan and Badakhshan—and we have struggled to persuade donors to support our frontline work there. Neglecting such places stores trouble for the future.

David Page
Chair of trustees, Afghanaid

A poetry revolution 1
12th January 2008

Bernard Wasserstein (January) gets one aspect of chronology wrong in his account of the 1968 election of Oxford's professor of poetry: Suzi Creamcheese rode through Cornmarket Street around February 1967, not in 1968. I was there, alongside Wasserstein, as together we diverted the whole caravanserai of assorted hippies and freaks through the back gate of Balliol College. I shall never forget the hilarious attempts of the Rev FLM Willis-Bund, dean of Balliol—with one hand held resolutely in front of him, walking backwards, Canute-like—to prevent the whole gallimaufry from processing through the college and out into Broad Street. He failed, the demonstration passed on, Creamcheese got her Oxford moment of fame, and the world, sadly, did not change.

Martin Kaufman
Via the Prospect blog

A poetry revolution 2
7th January 2008

I left Oxford in September 1968; having been banished to the wastelands of Sheffield, I heard little or nothing about the election of the professor of poetry. But reading Wasserstein's article brought on for me a flood of nostalgia for the Oxford of the 1960s: an Oxford so many of us loved and which the present vice-chancellor has been trying (unsuccessfully) to destroy.

Derek Smith
Via the Prospect blog

How not to kill a pig
18th January 2008

Alex Renton (January) makes various digs at EU legislation in his article about pig slaughtering. But his complaint that "animal health rules" do not allow the feeding of leftover meat to pigs betrays a lack of basic knowledge of food hygiene. Pigs are not allowed to be fed meat in order to prevent transmission of the trichinella parasite to humans. The disease caused by this worm can be fatal to humans, and used to be endemic in areas where swill-fed pigs were home-slaughtered and consumed. Luckily, animal health rules have ensured the last case in Britain was in 1953.

Gareth Cross
Bideford, Devon

What Gordon ought to do
23rd January 2008

I agree with most of David Goodhart's advice to Gordon Brown (January), but there are problems about switching to PR—which may bring greater participation during election times but would mean less government cohesion in between. Also, one cause of a worrying atrophy in the political process in recent years is the dwindling activist membership of political parties (and trade unions, in the case of the Labour party), and the effect this has on the selection of candidates for parliament and local government. Small cabals now tend to gather around existing representatives in order to control the whole process, and challenges to them are difficult to organise. I'm not sure what the answer is, but the process needs revitalising.

Jean McCrindle
Tackley, Oxon

The Irish rich 1
22nd January 2008

As John Murray Brown points out in his piece on the new rich in Ireland (January), the Irish sense of nation used to be defined in opposition to England—but it is now in danger of losing its moorings.

Take the 120-metre "spire" recently erected on Dublin's O'Connell Street, on the ruins of Nelson's Pillar. The symbolism of placing it where the icon of the British empire once stood, before it was replaced by an IRA crime scene, must have been intentional. Yet the new spire was designed by a non-Irish architect (with offices in London and Leipzig), using non-native materials, and flying no Irish insignia. It is a statement: the Irish have arrived! But by being a gigantic metal pin rather than a harp or some other identifiably Irish symbol, the spire makes a more direct statement: the Irish, having arrived, have lost their original identity.

Johnny Ryan
Dublin

The Irish rich 2
23rd January 2008

Given that the global credit crisis is now in full swing, it is a pity that John Murray Brown's article on Ireland missed the chance to examine whether Ireland's economic miracle has largely been the result of international factors like low interest rates and globalisation, or a more specific Irish acumen for business and policymaking.

At this crucial juncture in the economic and social development of Ireland, many outsiders are still keen to learn the secrets of its success, while the rest of us are still wondering where all these changes have come from.

Michael O'Sullivan
London SW6

Across the great divide
22nd January 2008

In his otherwise thoughtful article on Britain's new political divisions, Julian Baggini (January) makes a couple of references to trade unions that are neither fair nor accurate. Trade union opposition to outsourcing, for example, is conditional, not absolute. Where employers negotiate with unions and seek to mitigate the worst effects of outsourcing on employees, trade unions have a good record of working constructively and pragmatically with them. As to "preventing traditional male jobs from being taken by women," long gone are the days when unions exercised such control—if they ever did. In fact, the kind of prejudice he cites is far more likely to be held by employers.

Leslie Manasseh
Deputy general secretary, Connect

The return of Malthus
7th January 2008

Chris Haskins (January) is perhaps right that there is less starvation now than in Malthus's day, but Malthus was clearly right to say that there cannot be more people than can be fed, and that a finite planet cannot produce an infinite amount of food. Population growth must stop at some point, and must be stopped either by fewer births or more deaths.

The colossal population explosion of the last century has been "funded" not by natural income but by the running down of natural capital (notably fossil fuels and a stable climate). Every environmental problem is easier to solve with fewer people. Yet Haskins, along with everyone else, simply accepts population growth as a fact to be accommodated rather than a problem to be solved.

Roger Martin
Optimum Population Trust

AProspectcup?
3rd January 2008

Geoffrey Wheatcroft reminds us (January) that "soccer isn't the only game"—something England's absence from the European Championship this year is set to impress on supporters. There could, however, be one consolation prize for British fans: the gap in the fixture list leaves room for an England vs Scotland international at the end of May. This would be a return to the game's roots: England vs Scotland matches were the first internationals ever played. It might also help to stem the growing separation between the two countries at both political and footballing levels. And why not an annual home and away competition between the top London club and the top Glasgow club every July? It could attract a huge audience at the dullest point in the football year. And what would they play for? Why not a Prospect cup?

Philip Goodhart
London W2