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Being bold about sex

Philip Roth

Writer

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Europe in crisis

Aleksander Smolar - Political scientist

And now we come to Europe. Europe is in a deep crisis on many levels… a multi-layered crisis. Poland or Hungary are contributing to it to say nothing of the problem of migration. And now there are the elections which have just taken place in Germany, and which may have checked the process of emerging from this crisis because Mrs Merkel is weakened and it’s debatable whether she together with Macron will be able to present a plan which will fix Europe. Well, we’re saying all this at a specific moment and it can all change very quickly. In any case, we are living through a time of destabilisation on various levels: fear, uncertainty, anxiety… the anxiety of people coming from different places, and this threatens democracy. Even in countries where there is an old democracy like the States we see the election of Trump, and the same could happen in Europe. I mean, if this wave of migration isn’t stopped, I wouldn’t discount the possibility of it leading to the destabilisation of various democratic countries. As regards Poland, Poland is still influenced by these global processes although this often goes unseen. In Poland, there is almost no discussion about basic phenomena like globalisation or one which has a fundamental influence on destabilising the situation at the moment, I mean the advance of technology which is leading to a rapid and radical reduction in the number of people being employed. So what then will happen with those people who lose their jobs? What kind of social model will emerge from this? The effect here might be anti-democratic movements. We are talking about masses here.

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Ernst Mayr - Scientist
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James Lovelock - Scientist
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Jeremy Bernstein - Scientist

19 March 1933: Birth of award-winning American novelist Philip Roth, whose success as an author rests on his frank explorations of Jewish-American life. Here, he reflects on how he handled the topic of sex in his novel, "Portnoy's Complaint".

Philip Roth

Writer