‘Freedom’ is often held up as an unequivocal good in our modern individualistic society, and many people (and politicians) justify their actions or views on the basis of this. The short paper available I wrote for ChangeStar here explores the idea of freedom and our desire for it. It reaches what I hope is a
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Whatever you may think of the coalition government’s ‘Big Society’ idea (and I have my reservations), it needs a certain type of population to make it happen – one that is politically engaged, community-minded and willing to give up time for the greater good. I hate to say it, but this doesn’t sound like modern
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This article in the Business section of the New York Times is interesting, as it illustrates the difficulty that the mainstream media still have in coming to terms with the idea that living simply and buying less can make one happy. There are glimmers of clarity in the article – for example, the opening paragraphs
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Geoff Mulgan of The Young Foundation puts it well: “Over the last two decades a gulf has opened up between what education systems provide and what children need. Education systems rightly provide children with skills in numeracy and literacy and academic qualifications. But the emphasis on a set of core academic skills, and a culture
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Interesting report from the Institute for Govenment, pulling together some of the evidence for ‘automatic’ behaviour change techniques. Many behaviour change initiatives to date have involved a ‘reflective’ approach (the standard model used by economics), which assumes that people make decisions rationally and will analyse the various pieces of information from politicians, governments and markets,
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One of the important features of modern life that Life² helps people to deal with is the increased level of complexity within which people live. One example of this complexity is the chain of processes, people and impacts that sit behind even the most simple products or services we consume. As I noted in ‘Modern
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At Life², we’re researching the topic of older people’s well-being, in preparation for a future project. Although we’re living longer and in better physical health than ever, many people are still suffering in their later years from preventable causes like depression, loneliness and isolation. The well-being of the over-65’s has been neglected to date, and
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We’ve just added The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkiinson and Kate Pickett to our bookshop at Life², and I can’t believe it’s taken us so long to get round to doing so. I remember being impressed by this book when it first came out in hardback, and since then it has become well-known and exhaustively
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The Mental Health Foundation do some good work in breaking down the big (and, for many people, scary) topic of mental health and showing how it relates to some more specific topics that can feature in many of our daily lives and experiences of life – including loneliness, happiness and fear. Their most recent report
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I couldn’t resist this from The Onion – ‘Exhausted Noam Chomsky Just Going To Try And Enjoy The Day For Once‘
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