---
title: "Age of extremes: the spring 2017 New Humanist"
date: "2017-02-16T10:42:26+00:00"
modified: "2017-02-16T10:42:26+00:00"
url: "https://newhumanist.org.uk/2017/02/16/age-of-extremes-the-spring-2017-new-humanist/"
post_id: 6621
categories: ["Uncategorised"]
---

# Age of extremes: the spring 2017 New Humanist

![Cover](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/1702-1-Cover-web.jpg)

***The Spring 2017 issue of New Humanist is on sale now! [Subscribe](/subscribe) and get four issues a year for just £27.***

Age of extremes: a special edition on democracy and its discontents
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Introducing our special edition, writer and campaigner **Owen Jones** surveys the challenges ahead:

> *We live in an age of insecurity, of fear, of bigotries and deceits that are indulged, of rights and freedoms that are imperilled. Building societies that maximise human freedom and well-being, that allow us to develop our potential unencumbered, that emphasise our common humanity rather than the artificial barriers that divide us: these are the aspirations we must realise.*

![Vron Ware](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/vron-ware-small.jpg)

**In search of whiteness** *(print only)*

Identity politics is back with a vengeance in 2017 – but one particular kind of identity, whiteness, is often left unexplored. **Lola Okolosie** talks to sociologist **Vron Ware** about race, class and resentment in the 21st century

![Tiso](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/tiso-small.jpg)

**Hold the front page** *(print only)*

Donald Trump’s “post-truth” politics and populism have a striking precedent. **Giovanni Tiso** explains what we can learn from Italy’s Berlusconi era

![einashe](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/einashe-small.jpg)

**Becoming British** *(print only)*

Arriving in the UK as a child refugee, **Ismail Einashe** fought hard to feel that he belonged. Now, that right is being undermined – for him and millions of others

![Baggini](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/baggini-small.jpg)

**How to win the argument** *(print only)*

**Charles Taylor**, winner of the world’s most prestigious philosophy prize, believes that community and tradition don’t have to be set against migration, change and difference.

***The Spring 2017 issue of New Humanist is on sale now! [Subscribe](/subscribe) and get four issues a year for just £27.***

Also in this issue:
-------------------

![Ree](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/ree-small.jpg)

- **Jonathan Ré**e**** on the explorers and adventurers who gave us our modern idea of nature
- Could microdosing LSD could make you happier and more productive? **Suzanne Moore** investigates
- **Marcus Chown** explores the mysteries of the universe that quantum physics could unravel
- **Rahila Gupta** reports from Rojava, where a radical experiment in gender equality is happening in the midst of Syria’s civil war
- New poems, selected by our poetry editor **Fiona Sampson**
- Nobel laureate and economist **Amartya Sen** talks to *New Humanist* about the politics of poverty
- Everyone’s guilty of bullshitting: **Louis Brooke** asks if we should stop
- **Alex Macpherson** argues that country singers are the chroniclers of our age
- **Wail Qasim** on why the latest row about censorship in universities is based on a myth
- Columns from Michael Rosen and Laurie Taylor; the latest developments in biology, chemistry and physics; cartoon by Grizelda; book reviews; cryptic crossword and Chris Maslanka’s quiz

***New Humanist is published four times a year by the Rationalist Association, a 132 year-old charity promoting reason, science and secularism. Our journalism is fiercely independent and supported entirely by our readers. To make a deeper commitment, why not [donate to the Rationalist Association](https://www.justgiving.com/rationalistassociation)?***