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The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

The Forum: 08/08/2010

08/08/2010

BBC World Service - The Forum, 08/08/2010

The community versus the individual. How do we get past greed and what’s the alternative?

The community versus the individual … How do we get past individual greed and what’s the viable alternative?

Eminent sociologist Amitai Etzioni, says if our modern consumer society  is the problem, then the answer is a ‘communitarian’ approach. But can this really work? 

Getting beyond the individual is also what Nigerian novelist Teju Cole explores. In his case it’s not people around him, it’s communing with the past inhabitants of cities. 

And from individual to common ownership in music: should songs belong to everyone? German musicologist Dr Daniel Müllensiefen dissects musical plagiarism.

Illustration by Graeme Davis.

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