Does the responsibility of government imply a duty ‘not to inflame passion and give it new objects to feed upon but to inject into the activities of already too passionate men an ingredient of moderation’, as Michael Oakeshott described in his 1962 essay On Being Conservative: ‘not to stoke the fires of desire but to damp them down’?

Oxford Dictionaries has selected ‘post-truth’ as its 2016 international word of the year: ‘an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals’. Inflaming execrable passions, politicians in the USA, the UK and Europe have promoted offensive views on minorities, immigrants, and women. Previously unacceptable racist and misogynist discourse has been legitimised and even aggrandised. Hate speech and the rejection of difference is justified as breaking the shackles of political correctness. Continue reading Justice in an Age of Unreason →

The Institute of Criminology at Victoria University of Wellington is inviting abstracts for paper presentations at our New Zealand Postgraduate ‘Public Criminology’ Symposium, to be held on Thursday 16th February 2017. The Postgraduate Symposium precedes the Fourth Annual New Zealand Criminology Symposium, also on the theme of Public Criminology, held at Victoria University of Wellington, on Friday 17th February. All presenters at the Postgraduate Conference are warmly invited to attend on the following day as well.

Continue reading ‘Public Criminology’ Postgraduate Symposium →