INVENIRE

One of the major drawbacks of democratic countries is that they are susceptible to the potential ignorance of the people. There are two antidotes to this, one of which has long been ignored. The parliamentary system, in which the electorate chooses representatives, is the first. This, to some extent, eliminates ignorance, as less-informed candidates are less likely to be elected to hold office. The second antidote, an antidote that has been ignored, is cultural literacy. The term was first coined by American educator E.D. Hirsch, and it describes the cultural and historical knowledge required to function as a citizen of a particular country. Hirsch has correctly identified that Western curricula place too little emphasis on the learning of facts, and rather that they inaccurately assume that children will naturally acquire knowledge as they increase in their critical thinking skills. Hirsch first devised this concept in the early 1990s as a college lecturer in Richmond, Virginia. He ...

We hear it all the time: our tax system is unfair. It is, supposedly, stacked against the working classes; it's engineered to benefit the rich and hurt the poor. I ardently disagree with this notion and I believe that those who believe that the richest individuals do not contribute enough are either unaware of the facts, or are more dishonest and therefore choose to ignore them. The majority of us agree that equality of outcome is not a good idea. A student who had invested a great deal of time and effort into preparing for an exam would be rightly annoyed if, after the exam, the marks were equally distributed. Similarly, individuals in a family of four would not each eat the same amount of food in the spirit of equality; food would be distributed in accordance to need. We also, almost unanimously, agree that proportion is just. This is evident in the way we respond to tragedies. We express frustration and anger over news that, due to bad weather, farmer's harvest has failed...

Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of British history is familiar with the Magna Carta. First signed by King John in 1215, it is the birth of constitutionalism in England. However, there is another equally important document that receives much less attention, both from general society and from our schools. Although it failed to respect the inherent right of Catholics to worship as they saw fit, it was a strong message in forcing monarchs to accept that they were not divinely chosen and could therefore not act executively without the consent of Parliament. Its relatives? The Magna Carta, the Provisions of Oxford and the far more famous US Bill of Rights. The document is the English Bill of Rights. The English Bill of Rights was presented to William and Mary at their coronation, after King James II, the previous King, was forced to abdicate the throne after the Glorious Revolution. The document addressed their grievances with the former monarch and clearly outlined that the civ...

William I, King of England, is most commonly known for successfully invading England in 1066. By doing so, he not only introduced a new royal house, he also changed the English language by introducing French elements to it. This article will look at the resistance to William I, and his response.  Three months after the Battle of Hastings, on Christmas Day 1066, William I was coronated at Westminster Abbey, as King of England. His crown, however, did not grant him social acceptance by the English people. He spent the first few years of his reign asserting dominance all over the country. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the most comprehensive record of Anglo-Saxon history available to us, the citizens of London wanted Edgar the Aetheling to be king, “as was his proper due by birth.” Support for Edgar also grew amongst the Church, with the Archbishop of York also supporting the 17-year-old, prompting William I to launch a wave of military campaigns to subdue England. The An...

Amidst the political and social division in the United Kingdom, many believe that the system is incapable of dealing with as great a constitutional crisis as Brexit. The issue has stoked debate as to whether true power is vested in Parliament or the people. To someone who thinks in purely theoretical terms, the answer is obvious: Parliament is representative of the people, therefore power is vested in both parties. However, to everyone else, the answer is not so clear. Despite MPs being sent to Westminster as representatives of their constituents, they have betrayed the people they supposedly serve, by disobeying the democratic mandate. While I am not a fan of tyranny by majority, representative democracies cannot choose when they would rather not carry out the demands of the people. I'll attempt to answer the question "Is Parliament efficient enough for modern Britain?". In this article, I will attempt to answer this question and compare the Britsh system of government ...

Human attempts to measure human intelligence have been prevalent since the beginning of humanity. Initially, this was not done numerically; people were simply given jobs as scribes based on qualitative measures, such as lineage. However, in the early 20th century, psychologists began to measure mental faculty numerically, devising what would eventually evolve into the IQ test. French psychologist Alfred Binet, alongside Théodore Simon, devised the IQ's test most notable ancestor: the Simon-Binet test. It was published in 1905 and was initially created to identify mental retardation in schoolchildren. For that reason, the skills tested were incredibly specific to schoolchildren; one of the skills tested was paper-cutting. Binet believed that his test would correctly identify children who needed medical care for their cognitive development; however, he stressed that he believed that intelligence could not be described simply numerically. Alfred Binet believed that intelligence shou...

The article below is not an endorsement of any political party, organisation or individual.  Nigel Farage's newly founded Brexit Party has surged to the top of the polls for the upcoming European elections. According to a recent poll from Opinum, 34% of voters intend on voting for the Brexit Party in the upcoming elections, as compared to just 21% for Labour, 12% for the Liberal Democrats and 11% for the Conservatives. The reason for The Brexit Party's recent success is that a number of Tory voters feel betrayed by Theresa May; they feel that the Tory Establishment has sold them out. Popular talk show host Julia Hartley-Brewer recently hosted Farage on talkRADIO, who stated that, "We've been betrayed by our career political class. The Brexit Party has succeeded because they have not presented a multi-issue platform. They have presented one supposed problem: the European Union. They have presented one solution: leaving. This simple messaging has resonated in pro...