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How to argue better: The winter 2019 New Humanist

Out now - also featuring Samira Ahmed on the elder stateswomen of rock, Poland's abuse scandal and Achille Mbembe on borders.

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How to argue better

The sleep of reason

Where did we get the confidence that emotion has no place in rational thinking? By Eleanor Gordon-Smith.

In our haste to congratulate ourselves for being reasonable, we accidentally untied the very notion of “rationality” from its rich philosophical ancestry and from the complexity of actual human minds, and now the idea of “being reasonable” that underpins our public discourse has little to do with helping us find our way back to the truth, or to each other, and altogether more to do with selling us a dream of an optimised future where everything is protein powder and nothing hurts.

The empire strikes back

Many pundits connect Brexit to imperial nostalgia – but its relationship with national identity is complex, writes Charlotte Lydia Riley.

As a historian, I’m not sure that facts will help us find a way through this. Writing history is a process of constructing narratives; not just retelling the past, but thinking about how and why things might have happened, how and why people felt as they did, what consequences arose from their feelings and behaviour. We construct narratives by deciding which stories to tell. Those choices are shaped by many things: our material circumstances, our political persuasion, our general outlook on the world. Writing a history of Brexit will require historians to unpick the lies from the truth, but the lies will be just as important to the story; and the choices that historians make to emphasise or to dismiss different points will be shaped by their own views on Britishness, identity and belonging.

The Q&A: Nesrine Malik

Samira Shackle talks to the British-Sudanese journalist about her new book "We Need New Stories", in which she argues that the old frames of reference – on free speech, political correctness and other areas – are not working.

Even in the past 10 years, the volume of content around the internet has grown exponentially. Our ability to post debate online has become more sophisticated technologically. There are far more ways that people can speak online and with the explosion in content, there is more objectionable content. So it’s not a unique or new issue. It’s just that it’s more visible. It’s challenging to manage because we still haven’t caught up with how we police speech online – although we have found a way of doing it in real life with laws, for instance, on incitement to racial hatred.

The winter 2019 issue of New Humanist is on sale now! Subscribe here for as little as £10 a year.

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Also in this issue:

  • Samira Ahmed writes in praise of the trailblazing elder stateswomen of rock
  • Madeline Roache reports on the abuse scandal that has rocked Poland's Catholic Church
  • A revolutionary new gene therapy could help treat many conditions - but the economics are a stumbling block, writes Peter Forbes
  • Why do we often turn to the natural landscape when we want to be cured on our ills? Richard Smyth explores
  • Philosopher Achille Mbembe on how the illusion of a borderless world masks the violence of our age
  • Is a "digital detox" possible? Rory Fenton gives it a go
  • Luke De Noronha on the nuances of nationalism in modern Britain
  • Is Uzbekistan's thaw the real deal, or just a show for tourists? Marc Bennetts reports
  • Caroline Crampton on the rise and rise of the period drama in the age of streaming
  • How teaching languages to migrants taught me some valuable lessons, by Antonia Dawes
  • PLUS: Columns from Michael Rosen and Laurie Taylor; book reviews; the latest developments in biology, chemistry and physics; cryptic crossword and Chris Maslanka's quiz

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