A Point of View

The economist, John Maynard Keynes once said to someone, "When my information changes, I change my mind. What do you do?" Tom Shakespeare argues that we need to reconsider our view that changing your mind is a weakness. "Sticking to your guns", he says, is of little benefit in today's complicated, fast-changing world. Producer: Adele Armstrong

For the September blues, writes Sarah Dunant, "usually time is the healer...you buckle down and get on with it...and by the end of October, things are on track for winter". But not, she thinks, this year. Sarah describes why she feels this year's September malaise has a different quality to it. Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Rebecca Stott is fascinated with abandoned or ruined cities. She knows she's in good company - along with the millions of people who've been drawn to the recent mini-series, Chernobyl... or the video game, Metro Exodus. She believes that, in these precarious times, they give us what H.G. Wells once called 'a sense of dethronement'. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"For several centuries", writes Rebecca Stott, "the dominant Western version of Nature has been Mother Nature, benevolent, ever-giving, nurturing, bountiful and compliant". This was later replaced by a less compliant and benevolent image....but we've always perpetuated an idea of Nature as something outside us, something to be mastered. Rebecca argues that we need to rethink our relationship with nature - and see ourselves as in nature and part of nature, not outside of it. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"No matter how many times you see the sun rise", writes Will Self, "it doesn't mean it will definitely rise tomorrow - or, indeed, that you'll be there to see it". Will sets out why he has a problem with theory of all sorts and the negative effect “theory addicts” are having on our contemporary intellectual culture. Producer: Adele Armstrong