A Point of View

In the week where his appointment to the Equality and Human Rights Commission has come in for criticism, David Goodhart defends objective facts over personal experience. "Our knowledge of the world is usually some sort of balance between personal experience and abstract ideas," he writes. "But the focus on the primacy of subjective experience....can go too far." Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sara Wheeler reflects on lockdown for her brother - profoundly learning disabled - and others like him. Books, she writes, "teach us that my brother's isolation and society's inability to embrace him as he deserves to be embraced have always been with us." But she wonders if, in these times, books can also teach us to be kind. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Howard Jacobson with his personal reaction to a monumental week in US politics. In an attempt to define what's at stake, Howard turns his attention to Basil Fawlty, the Garden of Eden and Jonathan Swift's Big and Little-Endians. And he has a brush with concussion along the way! Producer: Adele Armstrong

Zoe Strimpel examines why so many people have become passionately obsessed with dogs. "We have moved," she writes, "beyond affection, beyond dog-is-person's-best-friend love, into a passionate confusion whereby we now seem to think and feel that there is literally no difference between pets and people." She examines the roots of our attachment to dogs and argues that we need to re-discover a more...

"My mother tended to do it in shops and on public transport - my father favoured pubs..." Taking a leaf out of his parents' book, Will Self advocates a novel "practice" for our times. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"Big as it looks, it is nothing but gas and more gas, imposing its will on the sky by sheer bluster." On a night walk through Manhattan, Adam Gopnik reflects on the appearance of Jupiter high in the sky... and muses on the significance of this gassy planet today. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"The K beater, the whisk and the dough hook are rattling around in the bowl, and I am tasting butterscotch Angel Delight on my lips." Rebecca Stott relives memories of her 1970s childhood with one kitchen device taking centre stage. And she sees a lesson for today. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"As a fully fledged luvvie," writes Bernardine Evaristo, "practically every greeting and farewell is accompanied by a kiss or hug." But these days hugs feel like a distant memory and, she argues, wearing a mask is the least we can do. "It's an act of compassion, self-protection and a commitment towards the survival of our fellow humans, our country, our world." Producer: Adele Armstrong

With widespread unease over the government 's handling of the pandemic, Tom Shakespeare proposes that ordinary citizens should be allowed a greater say in what rules we should be following. "Then there would be no elites to blame," he says, "because the people making the decisions would be you and me, and our deliberations would be public." Producer: Adele Armstrong

Facts have lost their meaning," writes Sarah Dunant. "In their place, belief has taken over." Sarah discusses QAnon, widening social divisions, and her conversations with her hairdresser. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"As the culture war has heated up," writes Zoe Strimpel, "every word and tweet is vested with the insignia of identity, and neutrality is no longer an acceptable carpet under which to hide." Zoe discusses how subjects which were, until fairly recently, little more than sources of minor disagreements now form "the basis of warring social groups." Producer: Adele Armstrong

As children return to school, Michael Morpurgo questions whether we are educating our children....or programming them. "The pandemic has found us out," Michael writes, "shown us how ridiculous and absurd and sad" is the rigidity of a system of education so dictated and dominated by endless data gathering and exams. He argues that we must use this opportunity - where so much is up for grabs - to ta...

"At no time, in modern times," writes Adam Gopnik, "have we endured so much and understood so little." But Adam reminds us that plagues have often, in the past, preceded times of plenty - the Jazz Age, for example, following closely on the heels of the 1918 flu pandemic in the US. "So what lies before us may be parched austerity and continuing depression... or champagne at midnight in Gatsby's gar...

"The strange kind of liberalism that is currently in fashion," writes John Gray, "has rejected tolerance in favour of enforcing what it is sure is the truth." He says these new "illiberal liberals" who allow freedom of expression only to those they regard as progressive, risk smothering "the contradictory and enlightened ideas that make us human." Producer: Adele Armstrong

The writer, Katherine Mansfield, was diagnosed with TB in 1917. She travelled across Europe - trying all sorts of therapies - until her death. But it would be another twenty years before a cure was actually discovered. Will Self questions whether - if it takes years to find an effective vaccine or treatment for COVID 19 - we will still manage to maintain our faith in human progress. Producer: Adel...

"If we accept that gender is something imposed on us," writes Bernardine Evaristo, "as opposed to intrinsic to who we are as humans, then what does it matter if people want to switch genders?" Bernardine discusses the "gender revolution" and our attitudes to the disruption of traditional gender roles. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"There's nothing wrong with ambition," writes Linda Colley, "but coming to terms with our inescapable geographical smallness would be helpful." She says historically there's been a tendency to kick against this awkward fact and an obsession with the idea of a global Britain. Linda argues that we should recognise the advantages of smallness - nourishing a nation's innovation and agility. Producer:...

"Once in a blue moon," writes Rebecca Stott, "new technologies become available that make it possible to open up ancient, long-shelved historical mysteries." Rebecca tells how modern science has explained the events of 536 AD when the sun 'disappeared' and a devastating pandemic followed. And she ponders what scientists - hundreds of years from now - will be able to tell about our current pandemic...

Will Self on why a novelty bottle opener - with little plastic seahorses floating in an acrylic handle - is his idea of a perfect inheritance. "The security that financial inheritance may convey is merely relative - and divisive," he writes. So, instead, Will suggests leaving behind something ordinary....and useful. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"In the absence of sports, sports radio thrives," writes Adam Gopnik, "and churns and heaves and roils on a diet of pure abstraction, stays awake all night on the caffeine of accelerated nothingness." Adam examines the American fascination with call-in shows about sport - and the paradox that although they have absolutely no sport to talk about right now, the shows have never been more argumentati...

"We need to challenge how we historicise the past and give it a thorough spring clean," writes Bernardine Evaristo. Bernardine discusses the UK's response to Black Lives Matter, "a necessary moment in our political history." Producer: Adele Armstrong

"There is a piece of advice that my white British friends seem never to receive but which I have had the good fortune to be given on many occasions - 'If you don't like it here, you can always leave'". Zia Haider Rahman reflects on what lies behind the comment. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Mary Beard asks if the iconic university lecture might have had its day, in the aftermath of the pandemic. "I reckon that over my career I've done getting on for 2000 of them....I doubt I'll be doing another before I retire." Producer: Adele Armstrong

"It seemed to occur to nobody in the Cummings hunt that the greater good would almost certainly have been served by down-playing the story". David Goodhart examines the accountability and transparency requirements of modern institutions and the impact they've had on the government's handling of the pandemic. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"I put myself under lock and key a week before everyone else after a clammy jogger in a pink velveteen suit panted in my face in Hyde Park". Howard Jacobson takes a wry view of life under lockdown. Producer: Adele Armstrong