If you could bring back one dinosaur, which one would it be?

If you won two free plane tickets, where would you go? Piaget insisted that the egocentrism of the child before its cognitive and emotional development was a very complex thing. He bowed to Freud in relation to the possible explanations of a child’s emotional development, preferring to look at how mature cognition, by which meant … More ‘Free’ is a very overused word. The real danger of the continuation of magical thinking into adulthood.

What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being? The idea that health is JUST an individual one is a relatively new one culturally and socially, although it’s roots lie in the Robinsonades, as Marx called the genre including Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’, of eighteenth century ‘enlightment’ and free market thinking. The idea has … More The illusion of control

What would you change about modern society? There is too much to change to achieve justice and decency in the relationships that human beings have with each other. But in the richer West and North of the globe, one necessity must be to stop the pressure on seeing economic growth as the means to hopeful … More Our hope for the future has to be decoupled from the false promises of economic growth

What do you listen to while you work? Listening has always been a theme of my aspirations in work and life. When I worked as a social worker and as a social work teacher, the answer would have been obvious – if you do work, social work, you listen to the person with whom you … More Is divided attention really listening?

Which activities make you lose track of time? Since I retired, I have feared losing my grasp on the need to keep learning and exposing myself to new things or revisiting old things in a new way. That isn’t because I want to widen the opinions I am ready to hold but to understand why … More Engaged: Reading and writing

List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain. That nothing is certain beyond the impossibility of certainty is the only truth that we must hold on to. The rest is wishful or magical thinking. We may need that but it is only confused with a way of shaping destinies in the most unhelpful faith … More Impossible questions

On what subject(s) are you an authority? Authority is I suppose the right of the maker of something, an author in fact, to descriptively name and evaluate that thing they made. Milton wrote a great and long poem, Paradise Lost, though to show that even God gets his creation wrong and that other perspectives, especially … More Want the truth? Authority is an illusion of power and inequality bolstered by bad education.

What’s your definition of romantic? The romantic is a sensually and imaginatively heightened form of interaction between people, although I sometimes feel it is mainly a narcissistic experience entirely for some and a little for everyone. It elevates the physical sensation so it isn’t the opposite of the embodied or ‘sexual’. It engages the mind … More A heightened form of interaction between people.

How important is spirituality in your life? I would have to start by saying that I don’t believe there is anything essential signified by the word ‘spirit’. There is no thinginess or essence in other words that equates with ‘spirit’. Instead it is a sign that we believe that the meaning of objects, animate and … More The spirit gives a life and meaning to the forces that animate material objects