Big business increasingly likes to portray itself as socially concerned, adopting the style of civic action through 'campaigns' of varying degrees of cynicism.

Deeper fulfilment is rather different from the happiness of seeing a good film or watching your team win at football, and it doesn't come at the push of a button.

Democracy isn't solely about polite conversations in parliaments. It needs to be continually refreshed with raw passions, anger and ideals.

As the Internet of things advances, the very notion of a clear dividing line between reality and virtual reality becomes blurred, sometimes in creative ways.

With a fractured sense of self, we come to depend on what people feed back to us - often mediated through social networks - not what we are. We have complex identities but may become less able to act as a subject - confident in what we really are.

Britain is rich in radicalism, and anyone who says that our society has drifted into fatalism and apathy should get out more.

Over 5,000 years, states have made surprisingly consistent claims about their duties. They have promised to protect people from threats; promote their welfare; deliver justice and also, perhaps less obviously, uphold truth - originally truths about the cosmos, and more recently truths drawn from reason and knowledge.