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Alan Colquhoun

@alancolquhoun.bsky.social

1.4K followers 1.6K following 7.1K posts

Pianist, philosopher, author, ethicist, metaphysician, moralist, aesthete...🇺🇦

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · Nov 18

Plain enough to cut through the bullshit, but sharp enough to keep it clean...

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 5h

There be sharks

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 5h

It's gorgeous

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 5h

(from left to right) Toby myself and my younger brother...

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 5h

Me (age 20) with 'Mindy' the budgerigar...

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 5h

Och! Poor you.

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 6h

We each had our flu jab, about an hour ago...

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 6h

'Sulphur tuft', in our garden, just now...

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 7h

In that sense, the focus of the essay sits one logical tier beneath Freud’s schema - not between id and superego, but at the point where reflex first hesitates and asks whether it must obey either

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 7h

Not quite, though I can see why the parallel tempts

Freud’s model presupposes a psychic architecture already partitioned: id as impulse, ego as mediator, superego as moral censor

My concern is with what precedes such architecture:

the point at which volition itself emerges

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 11h

open.substack.com/pub/alancolq...

The Insubordinate Flesh

On the Will, the Myth of Innocence, and the Grammar of the Good...

open.substack.com

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 1d

Halfway up Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, at sunrise this morning

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Reposted by Alan Colquhoun

James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 1d

Lords Heseltine & Kinnock seem more alive to these self-evident truths than most members of the Commons. Similarly, I find thinkers with direct lived experience of far right dictatorship, Greeks of a certain age for example, crystal clear about what’s happening now.

BBC Newsnight @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social · 2d

“You described Reform and other parties across Europe today as among the 'right wing equivalents of the fascists in the 1930s'. Why?”

“Because that’s what they are”

@vicderbyshire.bsky.social asks Lord Heseltine about remarks he made at Conservative Party Conference.

#Newsnight

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 1d

My view right now...

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 2d

I agree

Washington is on form (when isn't he?)

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 2d

open.substack.com/pub/alancolq...

The Modest Sentence That Refutes Moral Relativism

A single everyday utterance shows why the truth about moral goodness can’t be mere opinion...

open.substack.com

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 2d

It's an insightful observation and an important point, well made.

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 2d

Saddened to learn of the death of John Woodvine

His Banquo in the Thames Television 1978 production of Macbeth with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench left a deep impression on me - quiet strength, dignity and real menace when the ghost returns

A fine actor with a remarkable, long career

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 3d

open.substack.com/pub/alancolq...

Nothing to Report - News Without News

How broadcast journalism so often sparkles while saying nothing...

open.substack.com

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 3d

Nick Griffin even appears on the scene

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 3d

@mrjamesob.bsky.social

Worth recalling Bill Buford’s 'Among the Thugs' (1990) — wherein he traces English football hooliganism, not just as random violence but as a recruiting ground for fascist groups

Much of today’s far right street politics grew out of those networks

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 3d

Kotulka is a happy cat (obviously)

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 4d

There are a number of problems with your question:

Gods are plural and literally imperceptible and nonexistent

And, as I argued above, 'neurodivergent' is itself a misnomer

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 4d

UK parliament can already pass any law it wants; the ECHR only lets individual citizens challenge breaches of basic rights and forces the UK to face external scrutiny when it tramples them

Scrapping it means giving ministers unchecked power over liberty, fair trial and protection from abuse

Andrew Copson @andrewcopson.bsky.social · 5d

The Convention on Human Rights is one of the greatest achievements of European civilisation following one of its greatest tragedies. To join Russia in leaving it would be one of the biggest acts of national self-sabotage in history and have zero positive consequences www.bbc.com/news/article...

UK will leave ECHR if Tories win election, Badenoch says

The European Convention on Human Rights has become a focal point in debates around changing immigration policy.

www.bbc.com

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Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 4d

With my brother and his wife up Blackford Hill this morning...

Alan Colquhoun @alancolquhoun.bsky.social · 4d

@matthew-wright.bsky.social

Excellent show again today

I think people should reflect on the fact that there isn't a single person alive today who doesn't owe their very existence to opportunistic migration

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