On Tuesday October 20 at the Karl der Grosse, I’m pleased to announce that the Zurich Salon will be debating what is art and what is connoisseurship and how do we distinguish false, bad or mediocre art from a masterpiece. What makes something qualify as art as opposed to kitsch? After all, regardless of how we assess art’s intrinsic value, art certainly has a price. Is everybody’s opinion equal? Read on ›

Health warning 21st July, 2015: I made two errors in this piece that were pointed out by the author (Louise Bagshawe) and former British MP Louise Mensch.  I am pleased to note that I was not correct to write ‘nobody laughed’ because evidence has emerged demonstrating that there was laughter in response to Tim Hunt’s joke. I was also wrong to write that he made a fool of himself. In my defence, as Louise Mensch kindly tweeted, “at the time he [I] wrote this, the falsity of the account of TH joke getting a ‘stony reception’ wasn’t known”. The new news merely strengthens what follows. Read on ›

On Tuesday 26 May I’m involved in organising the Zurich Salon’s discussion on whether “the EU is a threat to democracy or its guardian?” in association with the Karl der Grosse. Read on ›

This essay dedicated to Marshall McLuhan (1911 – 1980) was first published in 2011 to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. It is both a critique and a celebration of McLuhan’s insightful thinking.  Read on ›

One would think that because everybody can speak, everybody could master rhetoric and the refined arts of influencing others (read public relations). But that’s not quite how it is. Cicero’s great work Oratory and Orators describes how Rome produced many more talented poets and commanders of the army than persuasive orators of note. Read on ›

I know I’m late getting to this story (it’s thanks to a recent Twitter exchange with @josifmck, @prconversations, @greenbanana and @ggSolutions123). But better late than never. Back in April last year, Emma Jacobs published a piece in the FT titled Publicity is free with no PRs. Now I feel obliged to engage. Read on ›

I am pleased to announce the launch of the Zurich Salon. It advocates freedom of expression and rational discussion in the Enlightenment tradition. It promotes open-ended debate in an atmosphere of mutual respect. The Salon has a committee of six professionals including me. The first big debate on its agenda is the “limits and potential of neuroscience” on March 27. Read on ›

When a leading global provider of research on corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) positions ethical banking as a feel good investment package, we should push back. Ethics is about what we ought to do. It is not about what’s expedient and driven by self-interest.

 Read on ›

Back in January, I gave a lecture on the moral bankruptcy of the shame culture in ancient Greece to Associate Professor Josh Greenberg‘s fourth-year undergraduate class. Afterward, a debate arose about Isocrates’ legacy. It revolved around whether his ideas and lived-example laid the foundations for what some practitioners refer to as the morality of modern ethical two-way symmetrical public relations. Read on ›

It is not former Co-operative Bank Chairman Paul Flower’s peccadilloes that bother me. That’s merely an amusing sideshow. It is the bankrupt Bank‘s audacious reinforcement of anti-business sentiment and its bashing of its competitors’ practices that drive me mad.  Read on ›