Johann Hari

Some people who have read my article about error (see below) have asked if its argument for humility and awareness of our own propensity to err is more compatible with an old-fashioned kind of conservatism, represented by somebody like Michael Oakeshott, than with my left-wing collectivist approach. It’s an interesting and sincere question.

Some people argue that since we can’t, as individuals, know very much, we shouldn’t try to do very much. If we only view the world through a drinking straw, isn’t it folly to try to alter it? Shouldn’t we err on the side of inaction, since the chances of us getting the effect we desire are slim, while the chances of unintended negative consequences are high?

But here’s why I think they are wrong. The reality is that we all live in a world where other people are acting all the time, making changes to everything around us. The world is being restructured, whether we like it or not. For example, huge amounts of climate-changing greenhouse gases are being released into the atmosphere as you read this. I could respond by saying, “Well, what can we know? I want to be humble, so I’ll stay in my house, marinated in doubt, and be silent.” But that is simply ceding the ability to act to other people, who will carry on making change, on their terms, and in their interests.

The reality of living in a world with lots of people who are acting on imperfect information is that you, too, must act on imperfect information.

This should change your political behaviour in crucial ways: you should keep testing your views against the evidence every day, and scrupulously monitor that you are having the effects you think you are, without harmful side-effects you didn’t anticipate. It should lead to humble action – but that is different to inaction. As the psychologist Rolly May put it, “the seeming contradiction [is] that we must be fully committed, but we must also be aware at the same time we might possibly be wrong.” I think a humble, non-utopian, evidence-based left is the only kind worth having, and it is a world away from an accept-the-world-as-it-is conservatism.

 You can subscribe here.

There are details and tickets here. Come along...

Come along - you can get free tickets here.

 ...at 12.30pm, talking about the Pope, the British election, Afghanistan, and more... If anyone of my lovely readers wants to put it on YouTube send me a link and I'll post it here.

Come along.

You can find details here. I'll be on a panel with Ken Livingstone and Harriet Harman discussing how to beat the right in 2010.

,,,where you can bid for the staff to do various things for you. Mark Steel will give you a live comedy gig in your own home, Tracey Emin will take you for lunch, and so on. I'll be giving - to the highest bidder! - a guided tour of the East End. I'll show you the evolution from the Irish East End to the Jewish East End to the Muslim East End, by way of the flat where Stalin and Trotsky shared a room, the Elephant Man lived and died, and the Krays killed - all ending in a slap-up curry on Brick Lane. To bid, click here. All proceeds go to our terrific Christmas charities - details on the site...

....dscussing the cultural responses to global warming. It's at 11pm on BBC2. I'll post a link here so you can watch it online afterwards.

Noam Chomsky talks about - and praises! - my work in this lecture at SOAS. I almost cried when I heard it. Reading Chomsky's work has been an essential part of helping me to figure out exactly why I was so horrifically wrong about Iraq, and how I should change my thinking. I owe him a hefty debt, so it's humbling to think I have helped to inform him about other  situations in the world. 

Oh, and - for the completists - I was interviewed in this piece for the Washington Monthly, where I defend Britain's network of CCTV cameras to a lovely but bemused American who sees them as a sign of Orwellian terror.

...with my friends and colleagues Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Steve Richards, and others, from 6.30pm to 9.30pm. To join us for free, email rsvp@independent.co.uk and ask for tickets.

It turns out everyone hated my old purple website - you beasts! - so my lovely friends Matthew Bloch and Anna Powell-Smith have brought you this redesign.

No doubt there are some glitches as with any new site, so if you spot any please do let me know.

Any proposed tweaks or changes are very welcome: email me at johann *at* johannhari.com. (I realise that sounds like the single most egotistical email address in history, but to be fair, I didn't invent it...)

I am dismayed by how many people will email me after an article saying: "How could you possibly say X, Y or Z?" when I haven't said it. After puzzling for a while, I realize they are talking about the headline - which I didn't write.

This week there have been two ripe examples. My piece about some nineteenth century anarchists was headlined "The First Terrorists." More than five hundred people have emailed saying - how could you say that? There were hundreds of 'terrorists' who preceded them, etc etc. But read the article. I didn't call them "terrorists" at all, never mind "the first terrorists." I don't think they are.

Then a headline was put on my article about the risk from the white far right in Britain which said "the terror risk comes not from jihadis but from Neo-Nazis." Huge numbers of people emailed to say: how can you possibly say there isn't a risk from jihadis etc etc. But anybody who knows anything about me knows that I loathe jihadis - I have worked undercover to expose them, and I have had plenty of death-threats from them. Indeed, the article itself talks very plainly about the very real risk from jihadis.

Journalists never write their own headlines. It's an ineluctable fact of newspaper production.

I'm not complaining about the section editors and sub-editors who do write the headlines at all: they work under enormous time constraints and tremendous pressure, and do a great job 90 percent of the time - which is a considerably better proportion of great work than I manage.

I'm just appealing to readers to be aware of this quirk of newspaper production. If you want to make an informed comment on an article, you have to read the article and disregard the headline. Headlines are very broad-brush guides to what the article is about, and the broadness of the brush sometimes paints over the point. Don't assume the headline reflects the views of the writer.

Traducido por Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi.

Estoy consternado por el número de personas que me manden un correo electrónico después de un artículo, diciendo: ‘¿Cómo es posible que digas X, Y o Z?’ cuando no lo he dicho. Después de reflexionar por un rato, me doy cuenta de que hablan del titular que no escribí.

Esta semana ha habido dos ejemplos claros. Mi artículo sobre algunos anarquistas del siglo diecinueve tuvo el titular: ‘Los terroristas primeros’. Más de quinientas personas me han mandado un correo electrónico, diciendo, ‘¿Cómo es posible que lo digas?’ Había cientos de terroristas que les procedieran, etcétera. Pero lee el artículo. No los llamé ni ‘terroristas’ ni ‘los primeros terroristas’. No creo que sean.

Pues había un titular de mi artículo sobre el peligro de la extrema derecha blanca en Gran Bretaña que dijo, ‘El riesgo de terrorismo no viene de los yihadistas sino de los neo-nazis.’ Muchísimas personas me mandaron un correo electrónico para decir: ¿cómo es posible que digas que no hay un peligro de los yihadistas? etcétera. Pero todas las personas que me conozcan saben que odio a los yihadistas- he trabajado de manera secreta para sacarles a la luz, y he recibido muchas amenazas de muerte de ellos. De hecho, el artículo habla muy claramente del peligro verdadero de los yihadistas.

Los periodistas no escriben nunca sus titulares. Es un hecho ineluctable de la producción de los periódicos.

No me quejo ni de los editores de sección ni de los sub-editores que escriban los titulares: trabajan con restricciones de tiempo enormes y mucha presión, y hacen muy bien nueve veces por diez, lo que es una proporción considerablemente mayor de trabajo excelente que puedo hacer.

Ruego solamente que los lectores estén enterados de esta peculiaridad de la producción de los periódicos. Si quieres comentar de manera bien informada un artículo, tienes que leer el artículo e ignorar el titular. Los titulares son guías muy generales sobre de lo que trata el artículo, y algunas veces no tiene mucho que ver con los argumentos. ¡No supongas que el titular refleja las opiniones del escritor!

"Every columnist likes to imagine they’re a lone gunslinger, but in reality every column is a collaboration with a circle of people who deserve a huge amount of the credit.

So I’d like to thank some of them, and you’ll have to forgive me if I turn suddenly into Gwyneth Paltrow... Our brilliant comment desk, especially Adrian Hamilton, Simon O’Hagan, Amol Raja, and before them Katherine Butler and Cristina Patterson. Our legal team, especially Louise Hayman, who saves me from bankrupting the paper roughly once a week. Our subs, who rescue me from my appalling spelling and typos. The stringers and translators in all the countries I visit, who take a huge risk in showing you their country, and take the flak once you are safely mouthing off back in London. My editor, Roger Alton.

And especially my wonderful editor-in-chief, Simon Kelner, who took a huge risk employing me six years ago. A lot of people thought he was crazy: I remember one email he received a few months after I got the job, saying “Why have you made this obese child into a columnist?” I hope this is a vindication of his judgement…

And finally, the best gift any columnist can ever have is a group of friends who constantly argue with him, challenge him, and tell him when they think he’s gone bonkers. So I’d like to say a special thanks to the amazing friends who do that for me – Tanya Gold, Alex Higgins, Rob Blackhurst, Emily De Peyer, Jessica Smerin, Chris Wilkinson, Anna Powell-Smith, Stephen Grosz, Dave Pearson, Patrick Strudwick, Peter Marshall, and Josepha Jacobson.

See – I warned you I would turn into Gwyneth."

Go to http://twitter.com/johannhari101

Four are at the inaugural Editorial Intelligence awards for columnists - details here - and the fifth is at the Stonewall awards, with details here.

I am up against the pitiful racist hermit Richard Littlejohn - who admits he "rarely" leaves his house - for one. If I, or the other nominee, David Aaronovitch, beat him, it'll be a victory for journalists everywhere who don't respond to the murder of innocent women by calling them "disgusting drug-addled street whores" and "no great loss", and don't react to the systematic mass murder of black people by asking "who gives a monkey's?"

Here's hoping...

For details and to buy tickets, click here.
http://www.woodstockliteraryfestival.com/speakers.aspx

It's at 6.30pm and it's free. If you'd like tickets, just e-mail rsvp@independent.co.uk

You can also see me on Thursday on Question Time Extra on BBC News 24.

Normal columns resume on Wednesday...

The swelling chorus of scientists calling for the legalization of smart drugs - especially Ritalin for struggling students - has made me reflect on my own brief experiment with them last year. I felt burned out after a series of long foreign assignments, and my brain was rustily chug-chugging along at half-speed. That's when I first read about a drug being billed as "Viagra for the brain" – not Ritalin, but Provigil, a brand name for modafinil.

It was originally designed for narcoleptics, but clinical trials stumbled across something odd: if you give it to non-narcoleptics, they become smarter. Their memory and concentration improves considerably, and so does their IQ. There were no known side-effects, except – oh, thank you! – weight loss.

I hunted it down online. A week later, the little white pills arrived in the post. Within a few hours of a 200mg dose, I found myself gliding into a state of long, deep concentration, able to read a book for six or seven hours at a time without looking up. My mood wasn't any different; I wasn't high. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze. On Provigil, I had the most productive month of my life, writing reams of articles. I didn't notice any side-effects – until the third week.

At any given time, only a small amount of your brainpower is dedicated to the tasks immediately in front of you. The rest is working on other stuff – processing memories, your subconscious, your creative thoughts. But Provigil points all your mental guns forward. It deploys far more of your brainpower on to your direct task.

It's great at first – but it has a cost. After a while, you realise that your mental life is oddly depleted. Creative thoughts don't come to you any more. You are running on the imaginative store you built up before Provigil, and whizzing through it efficiently, but you aren't inventing anything new. That part of your brain is undernourished. You feel fast and flat.

When I stopped taking them, my brain went back to its slower, scrappier state – but my creative impulses came back. I was more spontaneous again. So I have cut a deal with myself. I keep a pack in the bathroom cabinet for the days when I am really knackered and have to be able to work fast and fluently – but I don't ever take more than one or two a month.

But if I ever had to do exams again, I would take Provigil. And here's the ethical dilemma. Is this the equivalent of athletes taking steroids? Does it create an unfair pressure for other people to take these drugs – which are still pretty expensive – to keep up with other students and co-workers? Or would we be unfairly holding the human race back by refusing to smarten up?

We can't escape these dilemmas now. Smart drugs are only going to become more subtle and powerful as money flows in. As Professor Anjan Chatterjee says: "This age of cosmetic neurology is coming, and we need to know it's coming." My little pack of Provigil is a challenge to us all.

Just click here.

"We cannot put off living until we are ready. Life is fired at us point-blank." - Jose Ortega y Gasset

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent" - Eleanor Roosevelt

"When you are going through hell, keep going" - Winston Churchill

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

"Happiness is a hound dog in the sun. We are not here to be happy but to experience great and wonderful things." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

"Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to always be a child. If no use is made of the labours of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge." - Cicero

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - J.K. Galbraith

"If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If they're shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going." - advice given by ex-slave Harriet Tubman, to slaves she was helping to escape

"Every step that the intelligence of Europe has taken, has been in spite of the clerical party" - Victor Hugo

"Strive not to be a man of success, but a man of value." - Albert Einstein

"The champ may have lost his stuff temporarily or permanently, he can't be sure. When he can no longer throw his high hard one, he throws his heart instead. He throws something. He just doesn't walk off the mound and weep." - Raymond Chandler

"I am disgusted to see Dos [Passos] said that writers should not write now. If a writer has any guts he should write all the time, and the lousier the world the harder a writer should work. For if he can do nothing positive, to make the world more liveable or less cruel or stupid, he can at least record truly, and that is something no one else will do, and it a job that must be done. It is the only revenge that all the bastardized people will ever get: that somebody writes down clearly what happened to them." - Martha Gellhorn, 1941

"The last three decades of this century have witnessed the ignition of the most significant internal conflict ever to engage the human species. It is not the struggle between capitalism and communism or between any other set of 'isms'. It is the conflict between those who possess the means and will to exploit the living world to destruction, and those who are banding together in a desperate and last-ditch attempt to prevent the New Juggernaut from trashing our small planet." - Farley Mowat

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King

- "Never let anyone think they're worth more than you, and never let anyone think they're worth less than you" - Violet Hari (my mum)

"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." - George Orwell

"Right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant." - Martin Luther King, 1963

"The greatest and worst words in the English language are: Nothing lasts." - Blanche Hunt, Coronation Street

"Things are always darkest before they are completely black and you die." - Chairman Mao

"This isn't a smile. It's the lid on a scream." - Bet Lynch, Coronation Street.

"Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good.... We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and Constitutions, he, his Parliament and his Constitution may not last very long." - President Lyndon Johnson, to the Greek Ambassador

"Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it. Tell them something new and they will hate you for it." - George Monbiot

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities" - Voltaire

"But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that." - Rick, Casablanca

"Each time you smile/
It'll only last a while./
Life may be scary/
But it's only temporary./
Everything in life/
Is only for now." - A chorus of puppets and humans, 'Avenue Q'

"Life is an experience to be lived, not a problem to be solved" - Soren Kierkegaard

"If you've got a hunchback, sprinkle some glitter on it, honey, and make a feature out of it"
- James St. James

"If you are going to tell people the truth, you had better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw

"Fuck em if they can't take a joke" - Bette Midler

Send your favourite quotes to johann@johannhari.com and if I'm gripped by a rare burst of efficiency I'll post them here...

To buy tickets, click here: http://www.nimaxtheatres.com/plague.asp

To buy tickets, click here.

Part One is here.

Part Two is here.

If any of my lovely readers want to type up a transcript, send it to johann@johannhari.com with your postal address and I'll send you an exciting present to say thanks...

Just click here.

(It's half an hour in on the Wednesday show)