• Home
  • About us
  • Contact Us
  • Date/Time
  • Login
  • Subscribe

logo

  • Home
  • Blogs
  • Politics
  • Economics & Finance
  • World
  • Arts & Books
  • Life
  • Science
  • Philosophy
  • Puzzles
  • Events
Home
  • Home
  • Blogs
  • Politics
  • Economics & Finance
  • World
  • Arts & Books
  • Life
  • Science
  • Philosophy
  • Puzzles
  • Events
  • Home
  • Magazine

Self-serving white guilt

Guilt, stirred up by leftist thinkers, is now de rigueur in the west. But Pascal Bruckner believes our soul-searching is both hypocritical and injurious

by E K / July 21, 2010 / Leave a comment
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Email

Published in August 2010 issue of Prospect Magazine

The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism
by Pascal Bruckner, trans Steven Rendall (Princeton, £18.95)

According to Pascal Bruckner, we in the west suffer from neurotic guilt, a condition imposed upon us by the high priests of the left. This secular clerisy are heirs to the Christian tradition of original sin, which universalised guilt by claiming that humans are fallen and must redeem themselves. Nietzsche denounced Christian guilt as a psychic evil which forces man’s will to power in on himself. Pascal Bruckner is a latter-day Nietzschean who gives no quarter when it comes to excoriating our new moral elite.

Bruckner represents a distinct species of French intellectual. Born in 1948 and coming of age in the upheavals of 1968, he initially indulged the revolutionary fervour sweeping Paris but soon became affiliated with the nouveaux philosophes, a group of anti-Marxist intellectuals. Consisting of figures like Andre Glucksmann, Alain Finkielkraut, Bernard-Henri Levy and Jean-Marie Benoist, this cenacle may be considered France’s second generation of anti-communist thinkers.

It is great to see that you are enjoying the Prospect website.

You have now reached your allowance of 3 free articles in the last 30 days.
Don’t worry—to get another 7 articles absolutely free, just enter your email address in the box below.

You are in complete control of which 7 articles you choose to read. Register now to enjoy more of the finest writing on politics, economics, literature, the arts, philosophy and science.

When you register, we’ll also send you our free e-book—The past in perspective—which considers how reflecting on the past can give great insight into the present AND we’ll send you our free weekly newsletter. (If you prefer not to receive the newsletter you can unsubscribe at any time).

Prospect takes your privacy seriously. We promise never to rent or sell your e-mail address to any third party.
You can unsubscribe from the Prospect e-mail newsletter at any time.

DEBUG messsage: regular

Related articles

Defending the indefensible
David Schneider / October 25, 2008
Social philosophy can be an anaemic business in this post-ideological age. But Slavoj...
The feeling brain
AS Byatt / June 20, 2003
Antonio Damasio takes neuroscience back to its philosophical origins in Spinoza's...
Share with friends
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Email

Comments

  1. Matt
    August 7, 2010 at 07:59
    On the other hand, if Western civilisation is truly unique and transformative, then why shouldn't those who had the good fortune of growing up in it's orbit be held to a higher standard? If, as I believe, English-speaking culture truly is the world's greatest voice for freeedom and justice, then shouldn't we enforce these standards all the more strictly on our own? To do so is not to deny the moral agency of others so much as to insist that our own path towards perfection remains real, rather than rhetorical.
    Reply
  2. Jon Monroe
    August 7, 2010 at 09:26
    I'll go along with white guilt being basically harmful. It often creates a truly bizarre perspective. The other day I was amazed by people claiming they couldn't raise their voice against the instinct for revenge because they had not themselves been victims (of the order in question) and therefore had no right to say anything. Here is moral collapse founded in guilt. To say that white guilt is hypocritical, on the other hand, merely acknowledges the humanity of the guilt-sufferer. Big surprise! The Left has as much hypocrisy as the Right; empathetic-guilt-hypocrisy is the mirror image of repressed-guilt-hypocrisy; Unitarian guilt is the mirror image of Episcopal guilt. As for the power-urge underlying white guilt. I suspect this is overstated in terms of it being another way of retaining superiority over non-whites. That sounds like rhetorical flourish; a way of mobilizing white guilt as an attack on the conscience of the Left. But the urge for this "superiority" is lacking on the Left. This looks, to me, as though the author may be projecting motives of his own clan onto the Left. It would, however, be accurate to say that power lies at the heart of the guilty pose. It is passive aggressive power. All those white people who tolerated the "harangue" launched by the indian-american (above-mentioned in the article) probably use, or dream of using, such tactics to silence opponents who they regard as backers of morally inferior positions. Their self-command in the face of a boorish colleague had an element of sympathetic reaction in it.
    Reply
  3. Jim Brennan
    August 7, 2010 at 12:27
    Displaying guilt like a ceremonial sword is about honour, achievement and belonging. It's the politically correct way of saying my people pummeled your people even if the only record of my people is at the Old Bailey.
    Reply
  4. Richard Carter
    August 7, 2010 at 13:17
    To judge from this review, Pascal Bruckner's book seems to ignore the shelf-life of the Mea Culpa, which was used for many, many centuries to weekly absolve the confessed sinner from the threat of damnation that week's sins conjured up. But, even more serious, perhaps, is its ignoring of the role of Ego in Liberal Guilt. The legion of Guilty Liberals have redeemed their virtue which was never lost, only in hock. They are now altogether virtuous, and so each and every thought, word or deed is not merely sanctoned Ex Cathedra, but Ex Caelestra. In short, they are fools. Nothing more or less.
    Reply
  5. jeff
    August 7, 2010 at 15:04
    White guilt is a form of liberal narcissism: liberals preen themselves on how badly they feel about things they didn't do. Which is why it's better to be a liberal: all you have to do to feel good about yourself is feel bad about yourself
    Reply
  6. Mark S.
    August 7, 2010 at 15:12
    Should we then celebrate the atrocities of the past, instead of apologizing for them?
    Reply
  7. Kent Allard
    August 7, 2010 at 15:38
    Yeh, yeh, yeh. Liberals are destroying the sanctity of life with their compassion and concern, occasionally descending into crippling bouts of self reflection that make the earth's axis wobble. Whereas the modern conservative's I, me, mine philosophy is causing lilacs and daisies to grow in the cracks of the sidewalk. If only we would cut the taxes on the wealthy all would be solved, not just for now, but for the eternity we will all spend in heaven, kneeling at the divine feet of Any Rand. Pardon me, I am going to berate myself for expressing liberal sarcasm. I hope I haven't pushed world culture to the tipping point as one of the countless liberals who are destroying the planet with a philosophy contrary to the All Knowing. With God's help perhaps I will join the Cause and begin pulling the wings off of butterflies.
    Reply
  8. Dave
    August 7, 2010 at 15:56
    "Bruckner imagines a playground in which French children introduce themselves as descendants of slaves, colonised peoples, slave traders, bandits, peasants, beggars. Since only victimhood confers identity, one must ransack one’s family history for any usable wrong." That's exactly the point -- he imagines it. Like a lot of intellectuals whose career identity is swimming against the academic mainstream, he wants to believe that the same trends that dominate thinking in some quarters of the humanities exercise a terrible conformist tyranny across society as a whole, and that the pronouncements of Derrida and Baudrillard have much greater significance in the outside world than they actually do. The reviewer seems to be making a similar mistake -- a few "nodding white heads" at a political science conference does not mean that white Americans are, on the whole, tormented by white guilt.
    Reply
  9. Jonathan
    August 7, 2010 at 16:02
    Leftists feel guilty about the nasty things we in the West have done, and through that guilt shape the new nasty things they do to the non-elite, Western or otherwise. They control populations through a desire- sincere no doubt in many cases- to save them and to make right the wrongs carried out by their ancestors. The feeling of guilt and cultural and political actions carried out in expiation of them authorize and justify the wider programs of social control and pervasive deployment of power that the left desires. Rightists don't feel guilty nor do they feel that they need much of any justification for doing nasty things to anyone, at home or abroad. Rather, celebration is in order, with targeted ignorance of the unpleasant details of the past- or, for more audacious rightists, celebration of that, too. Having spent a good deal of time around popular manifestations of both attitudes (I grew up in the rural American South and am now in academia), I don't know which I find worse, really. A rightist is pretty unambiguous about how he feels. Those feelings are likely repulsive, but at least he's honest about them, and doesn't pretend to care about 'helping' the Other. Leftists, on the other hand, by cloaking their elitism and desire to control in the platitudes of white guilt and political correctness, can be just as disturbing in their disdain for the Other (here not non-whites as with the American rightist, but people from the 'lesser' classes who need controlling). I find both attitudes, when reified in political action, dangerous and destructive, but in different ways. The rightist is more likely to launch aggressive wars and increase the militant power of the police, operating in a more 'primitive,' almost Nietzschean mode; the leftist prefers educational and welfare-based programs of control, of course also ultimately rooted in the violent power of the State, as a way of controlling- 'helping'- the masses which he disdains. Or, the leftist uses token reparations for white guilt as a salve for otherwise ignoring the poor and oppressed and instead focusing on policies ultimately destructive or disdainful of the little people, whether it is environmental policy or attempts to redefine marriage. Confessing and doing penance makes room for all sorts of things one would otherwise continue to feel guilty about.
    Reply
  10. Samantha
    August 7, 2010 at 16:26
    The problem with liberal white guilt is that it gives rise to moral and cultural relativism which encourages them to turn their backs on real CURRENT victims, like women in Afghanistan, and to place the blame for violence and oppression on history instead of the acts and behaviors of the CURRENT perpetrators. It should be said that guilt is an easily manipulable emotion and that liberal whites didn't just tie themselves in knots over it without any external help. White guilt has been a powerful weapon against democracy in the United States and Europe and we grossly underestimate the enemies of the West (and its Enlightenment values) when we fail to recognize that they are purposely using it to foment disunity.
    Reply
  11. Don Phillipson
    August 7, 2010 at 17:45
    "There is more, too, to be said about guilt itself." The imputation of guilt because an individual or a group is by birth WASP (or any ethnic similarity, e.g. Spanish and Catholic) is ultimately genetic. Classic antisemitism is similarly genetic, viz. the conferring a distinct status on a group of others regardless of their conduct or behavior. Both may be considered simply the pathologies of affluence (which, we know beforehand, has no objective measure and is in practice a matter of relative perception.)
    Reply
  12. eden
    August 7, 2010 at 18:43
    In the case of western liberals, it's not that \my comfort makes me guilty, but \my guilt makes me comfortable,\ and guilt - as opposed to remorse - pure egotism; if I can't feel like the greatest person on earth, I'm going to feel like the worst. What pathetic self-indulgence.
    Reply
  13. Eric
    August 7, 2010 at 19:42
    "Only when a black member of the audience spoke up for Waldron’s arguments did sanity return." Presumably, whites are only allowed into the clique that runs these meetings if they hold precisely the "correct" political positions. Blacks, as a form of affirmative action, are allowed a little more ideological leeway. Thus a black person was the only one to object. Most American whites reject this nonsense, but they were not invited to the event.
    Reply
  14. Steve Meikle
    August 8, 2010 at 09:36
    The author's original thesis is wrong. Though christianity claims that Man is tained with original sin the idea that Man can or must redeem himself is totally erroneous. Insofar as his argument stems from a false analogy with religious guilt it can be rejected entirely. Has the reveiwer failed to represent Mr Bruckner is or Bruckner a lazy thinker here? But, I agree with his idea that guilt the feeling, as opposed to guilt the fact, is self righteous self indulgence. But I hold this to be so for I hold that man is too evil to face real guilt and seeks to salve his conscience with the false, for I believe in Original Sin but reject self redemption totally. But if Mr Bruckner wants his ideas to be respected I suggest he argues them properly. As it is the only Mr Bruckner I respect is still Anton Bruckner the great 19th century comnposer of symphonies
    Reply
  15. Roy Coleman
    August 8, 2010 at 19:37
    "This secular clerisy are heirs to the Christian tradition of original sin, which universalised guilt by claiming that humans are fallen and must redeem themselves." Indeed the high priest of 'white guilt' has for long enriched himself in its resale. "We are all complicit" Prospect 118.
    Reply
  16. James Henry
    August 8, 2010 at 22:49
    Guilt is a hammer that is used by culture professionals to fragment the cultural and political power of those who believe in mainstream, non-commercial culture. This article gets to the point, and shows well how imposed-guilt serves the self-interest of culture-professionals. http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/ec_20100721_8086.php
    Reply
  17. Maia
    August 9, 2010 at 04:13
    This article conflates liberal white guilt with the aims and concerns that lead members of minority groups to point out the histories and current realities of oppression. All this hand-wringing about liberal white guilt amounts to little more than navel-gazing that places the reactions of white people at the centre of narratives meant to bring to light persistent discrimination and inequality. Good job.
    Reply
  18. John Mack
    August 9, 2010 at 20:48
    Two points: 1. I am reminded of a Victorian poem that has a man betting his breast and going on about how he is the greatest of sinners. Then an angel taps him on the shoulder and says" "Don't flatter yourself, you're nothing of the sort." Narcissism often takes a a moralistic form. ugh! 2. Yes, there's the phenomenon of unctious liberal guilt, which enables people to see themselves as morally superior to all others. But what about conservative moral triumphalism? It allow its practitioners to believe that everyone gets what they deserve, the rich riches, the Ivy educated open doors to power, the poor poverty, the middle class mediocracy that should not be rewarded. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!
    Reply
  19. John Mack
    August 9, 2010 at 20:58
    In certain educational circles liberal white guilt is used as a means of attaining totalitarian power. I am thinking of Duke University and the Lacrosse players. Accused of rape (of a black male) and the goon squad of professors who declared the players guilt in spite of the facts. It took a black law professor, who could recognize a lynch mob when he saw one, to bring sanity and fairness to the controversy. The self-righteous professors declared that even if the athletes had not in fact raped the black girl, they were nonetheless guilty and deserving of severe punishment because, by the nature of their membership in the privileged white upper middle class they were guilty of all rapes and all oppression of women and blacks. Sounds like Nazi thinking, does it not?
    Reply
  20. Jerry Meyad
    August 10, 2010 at 03:16
    Excellent review and interesting and worthwhile insights from M. Bruckner. Several of the responses have identified what I believe is an important aspect of this phenomenon, specifically that "class", or class relations within advanced Western democracies, is very much a factor in the use of guilt. Individuals within opinion-forming strata are both isolated from and disdainful of the working class. Sadly the counter-examples (Jack Henry Abbott and the NYRB being a horrible example) are mostly about celebrations of lumpen-proletarianism. Real engagement with the working class is best exemplified by the "racism" inherent in the portrayal of Archie Bunker. So we have an America riven, and genius of America faded, in large part due to a rentier class of left-liberal know-nothings. I say "rentier", because the class is the de facto curator and intepreter of American religion (they dying mainstream Protestant denomincations), American literature, American film, American history, American journalism, American music etc. etc. etc. "Unto whom is given, much will be required." But they come up short. It is sad if the replacement is of the right-wing knownothing variety, exemplified by Sarah Palin. It is to weep. A true story: In a heated conversation about Howard Zinn, a close friend, who had just finished reading "A People's History", blurts out "but Lincoln was a slave holder!" This repulsive distortion of the truth is what the left vomits up. I'd like to end on a happy note; perhaps the appearance of the Bruckner book is that. Jerry
    Reply
  21. Jerry Meyad
    August 10, 2010 at 14:13
    I should add that Zinn's book does not of course claim that "Lincoln was a slaveholder", but this is what an otherwise intelligent person concluded after reading such a tendentious and propagandistic book and attempted to use in argument, and which is therefore an example of the world-view of the left-liberal, to wit that American history is an unredeemable burden. The left-liberal consensus will be happy to replace such truth with fantasies of policed, regimented equality.
    Reply
  22. really
    August 10, 2010 at 20:33
    @Matt Western culture is not about freedom and justice and never has been. It has been built on the pillage and subjugation of countries and people for centuries. I'm sorry but when the true history of western civilisation is written (and it will be), it will not reflect favourably on the west at all (which is as it should be).
    Reply
  23. Jerry Meyad
    August 11, 2010 at 03:42
    In response to "Really" >Really says: >August 10, 2010 at 8:33 pm >@Matt >Western culture is not about freedom and >justice and never has been. It has been >built on the pillage and subjugation of >countries and people for centuries. I’m >sorry but when the true history of western >civilisation is written (and it will be), >it will not reflect favourably on the west >at all (which is as it should be). Ahhh the arrogance of, take your pick, youth? The jealous? The would-be exploiter? Western culture certainly is about freedom and justice and working a way to those goals. Nothing else comes close. Name a civilization that does not have injustice, that did not practice imperialism. The human condition, what Christians would say as "sin", is that it takes time to get it right. Don't "throw out the baby with the bath"! Churchill's well-worn phrase that "Democracy is the worst of systems; the only problem is that there is none better" expresses a deep truth. Take a single example: habeas corpus. Is this not a step forward? Do other nations offer this basic protection, in transparent and verifiable form? There are many examples. Your rhetorical stance is built on the sands of jealousy, or some similarly weak foundation. Jerry
    Reply
  24. jack
    August 11, 2010 at 06:21
    Well said Samantha, concisely put and right too. In Australia, the merest criticism of the misbehaviour of any Muslims, for example, is met with the charge of acism, which seems strange. Even where there is prejudice, it should be called bigotry against a religion, not racism, because there are Muslims of all races. But the racism card trumps all others, so people want to play it whenever they can.
    Reply
  25. A. Lewis II
    August 12, 2010 at 00:02
    Pascal Bruckner, like most critics of multi-culturalism, always tend to forget a simple thing: Bruckner and his ilk ASSUMES that the standard for culture is HIS OWN. White people DO NOT have a culture. They have a skin color. Skin color only represents the hue of your skin. It is arrogant white men who assume that because of their skin color, they are in fact LOSING their 'so-called' culture to the onslaught of mult-culturalism. All multi-culturalism does is points out the parts of history that arrogant white men will not and do not acknowledge, whether it be good, bad or otherwise. History is not under the ownership of any group of people. If a white person feels guilt over the doings of the past, then that white person has serious issues with insecurity. People usually feel guilty over DEEDS they did themselves, not over the deeds of others. Only FOOLS feel guilty for the actions of others (fools and parents, LOL).
    Reply
  26. CRothlind
    August 16, 2010 at 22:56
    Bruckner's thesis (the left's guilt vis-a-vis victims of oppression is a self-indulgent form of narcissism and a back-handed way of maintaining moral and cultural hegemony) is another example of the hermeneutic of suspicion: the attempt to explain the noble by the base, the high by the low, the spiritual by the material, the moral by the pre-moral, etc. That ubiquitous interpretive strategy is the legacy of the Enlightenment and, more specifically, of Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, et al. As modernists and post-modernists we deploy it all the time, but have difficulty gaining a perspective on that fact. We seem to believe that only subterranean distortion and compensation is warranted as the explanatory mechanism 'behind' human motivation. The more distorted the and subterranean the compensation (of our naked will-to-power, venality, greed, narcissism, etc.), the greater the insight such 'explanations' are credited with. That, in a nutshell, is the essence of modernity, which, as Barzun notes, begins in self-loathing. The hermeneutic of suspicion seems like an inversion of the spirit animating Christ's sermon on the mount ("blessed are the poor," etc.)! That interpretive strategy has its legitimacy, just as the merciless, apparently retributive taking-to-task of parents by adolescent children has. At least until the adolescent becomes a parents himself and has the opportunity to learn some humility. In the process he usually learns something about the motivation that comes from the heart. I believe it was Robert Frost who quipped that a liberal is someone who won't take up & defend his own position in a debate. Bruckner's work is in part a variation of that theme. Fritz Perls taught that guilt is fear of rejection/aggression. If that is the case, guilt testifies to the fact that one esteems the party wronged enough to fear alienating them and incurring their wrath, which in turn demonstrates that one is not a socio-path. Guilt makes us human and empathic. It's a form of remorse, for Christ's sake! the precondition of all reparation and peace-making. How perverse to turn it into another deviant expression of the will-to-power. That's just too damn clever for me. Of course, if it's all a matter of unconscious motivation--no one can dispute it! that's just the nature of unconscious processes, isn't it? But it seems to me that the "will-to-power" is working at least as cunningly in Bruckner's interpretation as it is in the guilt expressed by leftist intellectuals. If Freud is to be believed, conceiving everything in terms of power is itself a form of anality (the stage of individuation that centers around autonomy/self-determination vs. shame/guilt). Or, in Kegan's interpretation: impulsivity vs. interpersonalism. To me, that is the ultimate limitation of both Nietzsche and his acolytes (preeminently Foucault). How's that for a hermeutic of suspicion?
    Reply
  27. Joe Soap
    June 11, 2011 at 14:50
    Look at post-apartheid South-Africa, look at the discrimination against the white population. Hear the deafening silence from the Western media. But they sinned, Apartheid, the ultimate sin and for this they need to suffer. The whole fight against apartheid was a reflection of white guild in the west. History would show that apartheid was the only way for whites to survive in Africa. Africa will NEVER go to the lengths of trying to incorporate minorities in the way the west have tried to do. They are blaming the west for their failure and the west gladly accept the role (guilt) and give out aid. What a sick circle. I live in Africa and laugh when I see this behavior, the young superior white doctor going to Africa to help the little black children. On the flip side blacks are conditioned that nothing is their fault, they are historically oppressed. And the Chinese laugh all the way to the bank, as they don't suffer from this nonsense.
    Reply
  28. SC
    June 28, 2011 at 10:33
    He's quite correct. Ever watch late-night TV or listen to late-night radio, in the US? It's an unequivocal feeding frenzy of PSA's and phony philanthropy, aimed solely at - you guessed it - WHITE GUILT. It's so thick it's sickening, bordering on overtly obvious. Unfortunately, it's been a *very* effective as a control mechanism, hasn't it? My God, people - WAKE UP. Before you're extinct...
    Reply
  29. tigrin semoar
    January 10, 2012 at 08:57
    @Joe Soap, that is the biggest load of racist twaddle i've read in some time and one of the reasons why i can't take commentators like you seriously. You glibly generalize the most culturolinguistically diverse continent as if it were a country of 5 million people. And while I read of this discrimination against white south Africans when i lived in South Africa for several years what i saw was a situation in which whites had enjoyed priviledge and de jure affirmative action for almost fifty years and balked at seeing it in support of non-white enfranchisement for even as little as ten years. And whatever you may say about Africans and integrating minorities (or war) or any of the other lazy stereotypes, i remind you of the holocaust against the jews and roma, and where it took place. I recommend you read Straw Dogs by John Gray to come to a better understanding of western civ
    Reply

Leave a comment

You can log in to post a comment under your subscriber name.

Human verification - please type the words/numbers from the image:

Prospect's free newsletter

The big ideas that are shaping our world—straight to your inbox. PLUS a free e-book and 7 articles of your choosing on the Prospect website.

Prospect takes your privacy seriously. We promise never to rent or sell your e-mail address to any third party.

This Month's Magazine

Perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus.

Prospect is the leading magazine of ideas. Each month it is packed with the finest writing on politics, culture, economics and ideas. Subscribe today and join the debate.

Subscribe

Most Popular

  • Read
  • Commented

America: the failed state

Reason and romance: The world's most cerebral marriage

How John Berger taught us to see

Prospect’s most read articles of 2016

1917—365 days that shook the world

The one Brexit question that matters: is Article 50 revocable?

12 Comments

The UN—Israel's best friend

5 Comments

1917—365 days that shook the world

4 Comments

What are "British values"?

3 Comments

Authenticity is the missing ingredient in politics

2 Comments

About this author

E K
Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London He is currently working on a joint ESRC-Demos project on "Diversity and the White Working Class"
More by this author

More by E K

Many different Englands
April 29, 2013
Almost a minority
December 21, 2012
Europe's Muslim future
March 20, 2010

Next Prospect events

  • Details

    Prospect at LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2017

    London, 2017-02-20

  • Register

    Prospect Book Club - Elif Shafak

    London, 2017-02-20

  • Register

    Earthquake America

    London, 2017-01-18

See more events

Top cartoons

  • Collins_trident_final
  • collinshebdo
  • USEDcartoon_richer
  • 225_cartoon6
  • 217_cartoon_7
  • 217_cartoon_4
  • 217_cartoon_6
  • 217_cartoon_10
  • 217_cartoon_8
  • Collins_trident_final
  • collinshebdo
  • USEDcartoon_richer
  • 225_cartoon6
  • 217_cartoon_7
  • 217_cartoon_4
  • 217_cartoon_6
  • 217_cartoon_10
  • 217_cartoon_8

Sponsored features

  • Mind the gap: cutting poverty among disabled people

  • Manufacturing: how much of it depends on the single market?

  • Wine: What is minerality?

  • Providing the means for regions to trade internationally

  • Data as infrastructure: driving growth in devolved regions

Our Top Writers

  • Sam Tanenhaus

    Sam Tanenhaus is Prospect's US Writer-at-Large

  • George Magnus

    George Magnus is a well known economist, former Chief Economist at UBS and author of "Uprising: Will Emerging Markets Shape or Shake the World Economy?" (John Wiley)

  • John Kay

    John Kay is an economist and author. His most recent book "Other People's Money" is published by Profile

  • Philip Collins

    Philip Collins is an associate editor of Prospect

  • Diane Roberts

    Diane Roberts is an American author, columnist, essayist, radio commentator, reviewer and professor of English at Florida State University.

  • John Harris

    John Harris is a journalist and broadcaster

  • Frances Cairncross

    Frances Cairncross is Chair of Court of Heriot-Watt University and Honorary Fellow of Exeter

See more writers
PrimeTime

Prospect has established itself as a must-read title with key figures in government, journalism, policy making and business. People turn to Prospect for the ideas and trends behind the headlines and for a contrarian view of topics.

Follow us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • RSS

Editorial

Editor: Tom Clark
Deputy Editor: Jay Elwes
Arts and Books Editor: Sameer Rahim
Assistant Editor: Ian Irvine
Assistant Digital Editor: Alex Dean
Design: Mike Turner
Production Editor: Chris Tilbury
US Writer-at-Large: Sam Tanenhaus

Commercial

Commercial Director: Alex Stevenson
Finance Manager: Pauline Joy
Head of Marketing: Paul Mortimer
Marketing & Circulation Executive: James Hawkins
Head of Engagement: David Tripepi-Lewis
Head of Events: Charlotte Stone
Events Assistant: Keith Leon
Editorial roundtables: Penny Cranford
Head of Advertising Sales: Adam Kinlan 020 3372 2934
Senior Account Manager: Johnnie Norton 020 3372 2931

  • Home
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Acceptable Use Policy
© Prosp Publishing Limited
×
Login
Login with your subscriber account:
You need a valid subscription to login.
I am
Remember Me


Forgotten password?

Or enter with social networking:
Login to post comments using social media accounts.
  • With Twitter
  • Connect
  • With Google +
×
Register Now

Register today and find out about the big ideas that will shape our world—with Prospect’s FREE newsletter sent to your inbox.
PLUS we’ll send you Prospect’s e-book—The past in perspective and you’ll be able to access any 7 articles of your choosing on the Prospect website over the next 30 days!

Prospect takes your privacy seriously. We promise never to rent or sell your e-mail address to any third party.
You can unsubscribe from the Prospect e-mail newsletter at any time.

×
You’ve got full access!

It looks like you are a Prospect subscriber.

Prospect subscribers have full access to all the great content on our website, including our entire archive.

If you do not know your login details, simply close this pop-up and click 'Login' on the black bar at the top of the screen, then click 'Forgotten password?', enter your email address and press 'Submit'. Your password will then be emailed to you.

Thank you for your support of Prospect and we hope that you enjoy everything the site has to offer.