The Marxists of my youth wrestled with the problem of artistic genius, compelled to deny the very concept of genius because its outpourings were those of individuals rather than 'forces', 'classes' and, of course, 'historical inevitability'

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The fashion for ugly, squarish dogs that look menacing and unappealing have joined the tattoos sported in certain areas of our towns and cities as symbols of ugliness and menace. They are to most dogs what cudgels are to walking sticks

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The young would-be terrorist seeks to soothe, repair and avenge his personal grievances by identifying with a larger historical grievance, that of all Muslims. Thus petty personal grievance takes on a reflected glory and self-pity, the near-universal characteristic of adolescence, is ennobled

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The willingness to take loud and public offence manifests that peculiar modern imperative to be aggrieved and disport oneself in the mantle of no-risk victimhood.  More than that, it affirms that one cares deeply about something in the absence of any other transcendent purpose in life

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More and more people will discover the Aborigine in themselves in the hope of something-for-nothing, even if in the end their only reward is the moral satisfaction of having been among the oppressed. Such is the lure of privilege that it turns minus into plus

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The sub-pagan belief in nature, very common among those who claim to be spiritual but not religious, is very successfully mocked on a website called Save the Guinea Worm. A parasite of revolting appearance and habit, who amongst today's green-eyed romantics speaks for its survival?

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Those who backed Brexit were deemed ex officio provincial and xenophobic, seeking to have done with the European Union because they hate foreigners and want to pull up the drawbridge. They were, as usual, slandered thoroughly by their presumed betters

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Having spent so much of my professional life in the presence of criminals, I continue to find the whole subject of deliberate wrongdoing endlessly fascinating, perhaps because there is no complete answer to it. Man is born a sinner, and sometimes a rotter too. And that is that

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When the Berlin Wall came down we told by those who should have known better that the age of ideology was at an end. On the contrary, ideologies proliferated, driven by a quasi-religious compulsion to believe in the all-encompassing cause

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The question might be: Does rap makes people stupid and aggressive, or is it only stupid and aggressive people who listen to rap music?  If your agenda requires a particular answer, count on the dark art of statistical manipulation to make it so

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