The School of Life

Red Tory vs Blue Labour

A battle is being fought for the centre ground of British politics. Ideological divisions between the two main parties seem to be melting faster than the financial system or the polar ice caps. The School of Life is adding to the heat, by hosting the most vital debate of the day: Red Tory vs Blue Labour.

With both Thatcherism and New Labour in disgrace, the ideological cross dressing of the last thirty years has changed and intensified. Cameron’s Conservatives increasingly identify themselves with the National Health Service, educational opportunity and stronger local government. Labour meanwhile remains in thrall to the City of London, while strengthening its policy on Law and Order and presenting itself as the most effective defender of Britishness and the British State.

Speaking for the Red Tories is Phillip Blond, director of the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos. He will argue that only a revived Conservative tradition drawing inspiration from Burke, Disraeli, Chesterton and Belloc can challenge inequality, restore a sense of home and place and provide real security for people in times of crisis. Blond's brand of Red Toryism decisively rejects markets pretending to be free when in fact they are private sector monopolies, and far from insisting on a powerful state, argues for power to be restored to local communities.

Waving the flag for Blue Labour is Maurice Glasman, Director of the Faith and Citizenship Programme at London Metropolitan University and faculty member of The School of Life. Glasman will argue for a deeply conservative socialism that places family, faith and work at the heart of a new politics of reciprocity, mutuality and solidarity. The debate will be chaired by Professor John Gray, Britain's foremost political philosopher whose widely influential books include Straw Dogs: thoughts on humans and other animals. Find out what is really at stake in how the two great political traditions of Britain make sense of the role of finance in civil society. And discover the battleground over which the next general election is sure to be fought.

The debate takes place on Wednesday April 22 at 7pm at Conway Hall, WC1. Tickets cost £10. To book call 0207 833 1010 or e-mail [email protected]

Nigel Warburton on Free Speech

Philosopher Nigel Warburton will be wading through the thickets of censorship, hate speech, offensiveness and human rights this Friday at The School of Life. Find out more about the event and about Nigel's new book on Free Speech here.

Nigel has also created an invaluable web resource of podcasts, articles and links around the topic. Listen to his contribution to the new Thought for the World series, in which we argues with reference to the Geert Wilders case, that offensive views can have an unexpectedly beneficial side-effects.

 

Laurence Shorter in search of the brighter side of life

Let’s face it; January 2009 isn’t looking to be the most joyful month in recent history. The combination of bad weather, continuing global crisis and rising unemployment are likely to get even the cheeriest among us feeling a little glum. To add to the gloom, we've just discovered that today is "Blue Monday", officially the most depressing day of the year.

If you,like us, haven't heard anyone say they feel "optimistic" recently, come and listen to Laurence Shorter talk at The School of Life tonight. We've invited him to instill a bit of hopefulness into us ahead of Obama's inauguration. He'll be talking about his new book The Optimist, which charts his ambitious, year-long quest to seek out the world’s most positive thinkers, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jung Chang, Matthieu Ricard, California’s renowned Surfing Rabbi, and Bill Clinton. But even for Laurence, optimism doesn’t come easy. If your love life is in trouble, you are worried about losing your job, or your relationship with your parents has still not recovered from Christmas, rest assured he's been there too.

Find out more about tonight's event here. Read an interview with Laurence here.

Neil Astley on why we need poetry

Poetry in Britain is both thriving and struggling: it is flourishing at grass-roots level while poetry publishing is floundering. Bookshops have drastically reduced their ranges of poetry. Publishers have scrapped or shortened their poetry lists and are taking on very few new authors. Small presses have folded. Yet, paradoxically, public interest in poetry has never been higher.

More people write poetry than go to football matches, and poetry is popular in schools, at festivals and at the hundreds of readings staged every week in pubs, theatres, arts centres and even people's homes. Poetry has reached a wider audience through films, radio, television and the internet, as well as through initiatives such as London's Poems on the Underground, which has been imitated around the world. More people than ever believe, as Jackie Kay wrote in her National Poetry Day blog, that "poetry makes us think about who we are".

Neil Astley is editor of Bloodaxe Books, which he founded in 1978. These comments first appeared in the New Statesman - read the full article here.

Laura Barber, editor of Penguin's Poems for Life and former Penguin Poetry Doctor, will be prescribing verse at The School of Life tonight Thursday 15 January at 7pm. Click HERE for more information.

Mark Vernon on why The School of Life is reinventing the sermon

Sermons have almost as bad a reputation in the UK as late night talk shows on BBC Radio 2. There's the vicar, "six foot above contradiction", displaying all the arrogance of the religious and their ghastly sermonising. Verbose, haranguing, waffle: these are the synonyms that come to mind. Samuel Pepys sarcastically wrote that they were "good, honest and painful".

And yet, are we missing a trick in rejecting the sermon? John Wesley launched Methodism on sermons, along with all that followed, from stirring hymns to the Labour party. In the US, the sermon never died: it is the chief characteristic of the political rally. Where would Barack Obama be if he did not understand the charisma of the church preacher? His mix of religious rhetoric and secular aspiration is the wellspring of his success.

Malcolm Boyd commented that some of the best sermons he ever heard were in the theatre. In similar vein, there is a new experiment being pioneered by The School of Lifeto reinvent the sermon, or invent the secular sermon. Tom Hodgkinson was the first of the lay preachers. The editor of the Idler campaigns against the work ethic, and chose as his text, "Love thy Neighbour". He delivered a discourse against usury which, he argued, is the opposite of neighbour-love. For most of human history making money from money, as opposed to investing it in something real, has been regarded as a sin. Why? Because it is ripping off your neighbour: it "dulls the edge of husbandry" as Shakespeare put it; it destroys community. Thus the Bible commands: "Take no usury off him, that thy brother may live with thee," and Ecclesiasticus adds: "Be not a beggar by banqueting on borrowing". Read a transcript of the sermon here.

Hodgkinson's oration was littered with such Bible quotes, and yet, the last person he sounded like was a Calvin or Spurgeon. It was as if the best words of the good book had been liberated. They could speak afresh for our times when unencumbered by hellfire and damnation. The surprise was that the sermon format genuinely worked for delivering a substantial, life-challenging message. Standing around afterwards, with a cup of tea and a copy of the parish newsletter, the secular congregation admitted he had a very good point.

All this shouldn't be taken too seriously, of course. But then maybe that is the point, and there could be a lesson in it for the churches. People want to hear spiritual ideas, demanding ideas, ideas that make a difference. And the sermon is an excellent way to deliver them. It is just that the barriers around church-going are often too high or prescribed.

Secularists might feel more kindly towards the sermon if they knew that the ancient Greeks practiced a form of such preaching called the diatribe. It was probably invented by Bion of Borysthenes, a cynic philosopher of the third century BC. The diatribe was a form of shadow-boxing for an audience, posing rhetorical questions, parodying opponents. A glimpse of Greek Sunday mornings in the marketplace, standing around Bion's lectern, can be caught from the handful of his sayings that remain. One day he caught sight of a wealthy citizen in the assembled crowd, and retorted: "He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him!" On another, he felt his congregation weren't paying enough attention and chastised them with a cry: "You want barley when what I brought is wheat!"

So bring back the sermon! Geoff Dyer will be preaching on punctuality this Sunday and The School of Life have a host of key cultural figures taking to the pulpit in 2009 including Sam Roddick on Seduction, Alain de Botton on Pessimism, Robert Winston on Curiosity and Richard Wiseman on Humour. For details or to book click here.

Mark Vernon is The School of Life's expert on friendship and a member of the teaching faculty.

On the pleasure of talking to strangers

Last week we launched The School of Life’s conversation meals at Konstam in King's Cross. The restaurant is known for its seasonal and locally sourced cuisine and as Nina Caplan (Time Out’s features editor) wrote, “everything was sourced from within the M25 except the topics for discussion”.

The principle behind the meals is simple – all of us know how difficult it can sometimes be to strike up an interesting conversation with a stranger, but most of us would admit that it can provide the opportunity to really see things freshly. The School of Life provides diners with a specially designed conversation menu – containing tasks, pictures, quotes and questions to help stimulate conversations about things that really matter in life. “It has the potential to be excruciating, but actually it’s tremendous fun”, Nina Caplan discovered, ‘there are tasks to accomplish, aphorisms to discuss with the aperitif, questions to bat across the table with a stranger through dinner, postcards to ponder over dessert."

The meals have proven hugely popular with bookings now being taken for Spring 2009. Read more about the concept and find upcoming meal dates here.

Tom Hodgkinson on loving your neighbour

‘Brothers and sisters, I see in the papers the users are being asked to repent’, proclaimed Tom Hodgkinson at The School of Life’s first Sunday Sermon yesterday. His contemporary interpretation of the Biblical commandment LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR focused on the practice of usery. There was a time, Tom argued, when to lend money at interest to a man in need would have been considered wicked. Now it is the basis of the banking system. But salvation may be at hand he suggested, with the looming economic crisis and the renationalisation of the banks offering us a chance to see to the prevalence of sinful practices.

What other advice did Tom have to offer? Alcohol, he explained, is among the most tried and tested ways to promote good relations with your neighbours. He told us of the boozy feasts he and his family put on for neighbours in their Devon village and urged us to do the same in London. Tom headed for drinks after the sermon at the suitably named Friend at Hand pub opposite the Horse Hospital.

A synopsis of Tom's sermon will soon be published on The School of Life's website.

Tom preached to a packaged congregation who were led in song by the Hackney Secular Singers. Hymns included Lou Read’s Sunday morning. Confessionals were offered to living worry dolls; Jonny Satan, the West-country devil offered parishioners the chance to sit on his lap for 20p; and there was tea served with Nice biscuits and millionaire’s shortbread for everyone after the service.

The next preacher in the series is Geoff Dyer extolling the virtues of punctuality. Details are here. Be on time!

Read Mark Vernon's blog on The School of Life's sermons on The Guardian website here.

Mark Crick offers DIY lessons at The School of Life

Times are lean and the spirit of make do and mend is setting in. So we've asked literary ventriloquist Mark Crick to run a series of essential DIY lessons at The School of Life next week.

The series marks the publication of Mark's new book Sartre’s Sink which seeks to remedy the neglect that the DIY genre has suffered for so long at the hands of the literary establishment. This essential household manual provides clear instruction about how to replace a window pane, bleed a radiator, put up a garden fence and replace a light switch. The book has received unduly critical comments this week from Milan Kundera who declared it 'unbearably light', Jean Paul Sartre who found it 'naeseating' and Samuel Beckett who argued it was 'not worth the wait'. We couldn't agree less and are confident next week's lessons will change the tone of the book's reception.

The lessons are free and begin at 6.15pm sharp every night.
No booking is necessary but our shop is small so turn up early if you can.

Monday 27th October
Learn to hang wallpaper in the style of Ernest Hemingway

Tuesday 28th October
Be commanded by Julius Caesar on how to put up a shelf

Wednesday 29th October
Let Anaїs Nin seduce you into painting a door

Thursday 30th October
Apply sealant round a bath following the diary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Friday 31st October
Board up an attic with directions from Edgar Allan Poe

The Art of Living at The School of Life

‘Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so', concluded John Stuart Mill, the nineteenth century British philosopher, after a period of profound unhappiness. He realised that to pursue happiness directly is a mistake. Happiness is a by-product of life. As he also put it, happiness is like a crab: it approaches us sideways, not head on.

Three authors from a new series of books, The Art of Living (published by Acumen), will be at The School of Life on Friday 24th October, 2008, 7-8.30pm. Mark Vernon, author of Wellbeing, Raymond Tallis, author of Hunger and Chris Hamilton, author of Middle Age, have all written on how the ideas of philosophers can help us not just live, but live well. Join them for an evening exploring the good life. As Plato put it, ‘Our discussion is about no ordinary matter, but on the right way to live.’

The event is free but space is limited and advance booking is strongly recommended. To confirm your place e-mail [email protected]

Books from The Art of Living series are available at The School of Life's shop.

Diary of a Street Shrink

We asked performance impresario David Gale to set up a couch outside The School of Life and offer five minute "shreet shrink" consultations as part of our Open Day. Here he is in action...