The New Generation Society

Thursday 3^rd December saw the weekly Thinking and Drinking host former Yorker Mal Chadwick for an enlightening discussion titled ‘Less Environmentalism; More Pragmatism’.

Mal questioned what kind of a public face climate change is developing and asked to what extent, and if would we like, to consider it a mainstream issue or not. Phrases such as ‘environmentally pigeonholed’ were banded around whilst the actions of pressure groups such as 10:10 were considered. The reasons for mass apathy, he said, in the UK are to be challenged, as climate change develops into an issue that should transcend political affiliations, class and age.

Using his experience at 10:10 (though not representing, he hastened to add!) Mal brought up issues including the accessibility of climate change in attempting to win voters, questioning the ethics of inviting far-right parties to become part of the debate or whether taboo companies such as arm traders should be allowed to display climate-friendly logos on their websites.

Debate was rife, and enjoyment high; a jolly good and productive time for all!

For years, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent disappeared from public life – she avoided Royal circuits, the ribbon-cutting and the television appearances. But it was only in 2004 that the newspapers worked out where she’d been. And they found that, far from being a recluse, the Duchess had been teaching music in a number of state primary schools, all under the name “Mrs Kent”. Read the rest of this entry »

York Discussion Group – October 2008 – Mark Rusling (The Young Fabians)

At the beginning of the Autumn Term Mark Rusling, Chair of the Young Fabians, hosted a Future of the Left discussion group at York University. What follows is NGS York’s responses, ideas and new thinking.

(The comments in the discussion are not the opinion of Mark Rusling or the Young Fabians)

Mark Rusling: Introductory points:

• The whole discussion depends on the results of the US elections which are likely to change the global ideological order to a huge extent.

• The far left believe that any friend of the USA is an enemy. This is unhelpful and impractical.

• The far left have adopted a very narrow world-view, allowing US neoconservatives to ‘adopt’ traditionally ‘left’ ideas such as the importance of human rights.

• The Far Left are the biggest threat to the Left because they have lost track of traditional leftist values.

• The UK has swung right economically over the past few years, and there is no broad coalition on the need for redistribution

• The left should be standing for “equality of autonomy”, supporting people’s capacity to have control over their own life, and autonomy over their decisions, including their opportunity, and the outcome of their ideas.

• The Left are best placed to solve the current economic crisis because the solution must involve state intervention, traditionally a policy objected to by the right

• The Left must get together and ask themselves “What are we for?”

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York ‘Thinking and Drinking’, 15 May 2008 – Tim Hastie-Smith

Episode 1 – Tim Hastie-Smith at Thinking and Drinking

The NGS Podcast

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York ‘Thinking and Drinking’ 8 May 2008 – Lily Eastwood

Problem / Issue –

With the rise of Internet journalism the media is freer than ever – but how far should journalism move on to the web? Are we ready to see the end of the newspaper?
And what are the ethical consequences of such a free media?

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York ‘Thinking and Drinking’ 14 Febrary 2008 – John Halsted

The common perception of sweatshops as evil institutions, is totally wrong, and further, that sweatshops are both economically and ethically a good thing. Sweatshop labour is not ‘exploitation’ by any reasonable definition because the workers voluntarily agree to work there. As a consequence of the voluntary nature of sweatshop labour, the labour is likely to be the best deal available to the worker. The empirical evidence illustrating this point is overwhelming, and sweatshops tend to be more and offer better conditions than other alternatives. Good examples of this are maligned firms like Nike and Fruit of the Loom. I then looked at the effect of boycotting sweatshop-made products. Following from sweatshops being the best available alternative, it seems that when they are removed by consumer -pressure, the consequences for the workers are far worse than if the sweatshop were there. The only thing worse than being exploited, is not being exploited. I related this to York Student Union policy of boycotting sweatshop-made produce, and whether we as individuals and members of a union should be supporting this policy.

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York ‘Thinking and Drinking’ 7 February 2008 – James Townsend

First, to take religion out of society would be to lose the myriad of positive benefits religion brings. In a world of conflict, it is surely helpful to have institutions preaching love, tolerance and sharing? All major religions provide this, as well as bringing a community together to do ‘good’ work – think of the many religious charities providing unqualified aid to people around the globe.

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York ‘Thinking and Drinking’, 24 January 2008 By Tomas Ruta

In order to properly have a true meritocracy in the UK, education remains the last obstacle to creating a truly fair society, where people get jobs based only on their merit and not on limited due to any prejudice or discrimination.

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York ‘Thinking and Drinking’, 17 January 2008

Argument: The fundamental basis for the 21st Century modern feminist is that, quite simply, it no longer focuses primarily on equal pay and exasperating the physical and emotional differences between men and women. Rather, it would be more viable to claim that feminists are now challenging the traditional social labels of “masculinity” and “femininity”, so that, in essence, a woman could easily be a good firefighter if she has the necessary skills and physical strength required for that particular line of work, and a man could be quite successful as a nursery nurse or cleaner. The main premise is that social stereotyping needs to be overturned; that we accept feminists are a part of our social fabric, even if they are unhelpfully represented by the media as “bra burning lesbians”.

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