Losing Your Hand: Complaint, Common Sense and Other Institutional Legacies

In his preface to the 2020 book Common Sense: Conservative Thinking for a Post-Liberal Age, Michael Nazir-Ali refers to how the analytical philosopher G. E. Moore defended common sense by pointing to “his own hand,” to show he was “more certain that his hand existed” than he was of “any sceptical attempts to show that such was not the case.” Nazir-Ali then makes use of Moore’s hand to talk about how the coherence and stability of social relationships and institutions is under threat. Many of the contributors to this book articulate common sense as what has been or is being stolen by “woke activists” with their “endless fires of grievance.” In this lecture I reflect how the objects of common sense – including tables as well hands – become legacy projects. I return to the testimonies I collected from academics and students who have made complaints about abuses of power within universities shared in my recent book Complaint! I explore how some of us become complainers by questioning, or not reproducing, a legacy.

Time zone: 3.15 EEST, 2.15 GMT

You can join the event here: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/65152906192#success