As Wagner's Ring - that huge and controversial cycle of operas - goes on tour, self-professed Wagner fan, Roger Scruton, tells us why The Ring is absolutely a story for our time. 

"Despite our attempts to live without formal religion" writes Scruton, "we are no more free than people ever have been or ever will be from the religious need". 

He adds: "I have loved The Ring and learned from it for over 50 years and for me, it is quite simply the truth about our world - but the truth expressed by means of music of unquestionable authority and supreme melodic and harmonic power". Published on June 3, 2016.

The Ring of the Nibelung

In these special editions of A Point of View, five of Britain's leading thinkers give their own very personal view of "Brexit" - what the vote tells us about the country we are, and are likely to become.

Today, the philosopher Roger Scruton reflects on democracy after Brexit and explains why he feels it is the ordinary people of this country who care about democracy, not the urban elites.

"The referendum gave these people a voice", writes Scruton, "and what they have told us is that their country, its laws and its sovereignty are more important to them than the edicts of anonymous bureaucrats striving to rule from nowhere".


Producer: Adele Armstrong. Published on July 13, 2016.

Democracy After Brexit

Via steak and kidney pie and a spot of Morris dancing, AL Kennedy reflects on Englishness...at a time, she writes, "when Englishness is struggling to decide what it can be". 

She appeals to England - with all its different views, customs, history and opinions - to "treasure yourself, all of yourself". 

Producer: Adele Armstrong. Published on July 22, 2016.

Being English

Tom Shakespeare gives a very personal view of the implications for society of a prenatal screening technology due to be announced shortly. 

Tom inherited the genetic condition, achondroplasia, or restricted growth from his father and passed it on to both his children. 

Soon we will have to decide, he writes, what sort of people we are prepared to accept in our families and in our society. 

Producer: Adele Armstrong. Published on July 29, 2016.

Canaries in the Coal Mine

Will Self explains why he finds it hard to always act his age.

"To alternate between being an errant child and a corrective adult must, I think, be intrinsic to the human condition." 

Producer: Sheila Cook. Published on August 5, 2016.

Act Your Age

Will Self reflects on the joys of genealogy - truffling in census returns and parish records and establishing "our genuine links to multiple generations of nonentities"! 

"As a passionate Londoner", he writes, "I wanted to establish when the first Self had arrived in the city". 

Entire family sagas, he says, are today vanishing into thin air, in an era of nuclear families. Gone are those generations of extended families where over a cup of tea, the same old stories were told about the same old relatives. 

Producer: Adele Armstrong. Published on August 19, 2016.

Finding Our Roots

John Gray muses on what his idea of heaven is....and why it shouldn't be a perfect world. 

History teaches us that trying to create a perfect society leads to hell on earth, he writes. 

"But dreams of a perfect world don't fail because human beings are incurably flawed. They fail because human beings are more complicated and interesting that their dreams of perfection". Published on September 9, 2016.

My Idea of Heaven

Wheelchair user, Tom Shakespeare, reflects on what it feels like to be dependent on others. 

He says care often leaves the recipient in a devalued state. 

He calls for society to respond to the challenge of delivering help "without creating domination and infantilisation" and for care to be funded properly. 

Producer: Adele Armstrong. Published on September 16, 2016.

Who Cares About Independence?

Howard Jacobson deplores the fashion for "whooping" as a mark of approval, and sees it as a species of social blackmail.

"The whoop is on an errand to keep things simple. That which strikes audiences as true because it is what they think already, elicits a whoop." 

Producer: Sheila Cook. Published on October 7, 2016.

Whoop!

Howard Jacobson applauds the playwright Tom Stoppard's attack on the ignorance of the average audience, arguing we should not only aspire to be educated ourselves but should not be offended by the evidence of education in others.

"We are an entangled species; we are not to be unknotted easily. When we turn our backs on difficulty in art, we turn our backs on who we are."

Producer: Sheila Cook. Published on October 14, 2016.

In Praise of Difficulty

Roger Scruton assesses some of the reasons behind Donald Trump's victory. 

And he asks why many who intended to vote for Donald Trump would not have confessed to their intention. 

"They wanted change," writes Scruton. "A change in the whole agenda of government". Published on November 11, 2016.

The Trump Card

A Point of View
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors including historian Lisa Jardine, novelist Sarah Dunant and writer Alain de Botton.

A Point Of View

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