The Looking Glass

WESLEY AKUM-OJONG (U6) The contrast between what constitutes a good person and a good citizen is one that has been debated since ancient times, with Aristotle holding ‘the excellence of a citizen must be an excellence relative to the constitution’, while the good person ‘is a man so called in virtue of a single absolute excellence’. Often what is legal - what a good citizen should follow - and what is considered moral - what a good person should follow - deviate to a great extent. For example, 70% of South Africans feel homosexuality is ‘wrong’ (Sutherland, 2016) - i.e. immoral, despite the country having broad legal rights and protections for homosexuals. This is a clear example of a situation where the beliefs of the good person and those of the good citizen would diverge, and exploration of similar cases and contradictions reveals the difficulties in being both the good citizen and the good person. Being a good citizen necessitates following the law, even where it may cause harm to ...

  THEO ADAM (U6) This article placed as a finalist in the English category of the New College of the Humanities Essay Competition 2022. Literary critics, in their many, have long existed in the surrounding space of literature, with a significant proportion of them gaining a degree of notoriety from such practice. Providing deeper scrutiny into texts and critiquing them from a specific perspective, they have historically done this task since as early as the Classical period. This length of time suggests the role is a stable one as times have changed over the last thousand years. Yet, as just declared, times have indeed changed - genres, people’s rights and views, and forms of media (among other things) have been drastically affected by the progression of time. Hence, it should be considered whether literary critics have adapted to the modern world and how they can continue to evolve, ensuring this long-standing practice does not fade away and remains to be something necessary. Whils...

  OMAR MURSALIN (Y11) This article placed 1st in the WBGS Fuller Research Prize Competition 2022. In the early generations of Islam after the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ’s death, Muslims relied on the teachings of the Prophet ﷺ, and their faith was not fortified. The Prophet ﷺ had warned his followers not to delve too deeply into questions about fate and destiny, and his advice gave the earlier scholars of Islam hesitance to tread the waters of theology. ʿIlm al-Kalām or Kalām, is the science of rational theology in Islam. It developed in the first 300 years of Islam due to the translation of Greek books on philosophy and logic by Khālid ibn Yazīd, then later commissioned by Caliph Al-Ma'mun. The purpose of Ilm al-Kalām is to break down the arguments of philosophical doubters of Islam and silence them through a rational basis. The Arabic term “Kalām (كلام)” means speech: There are many explanations for why this discipline was originally called so; one is that one of the biggest controversie...

  DYLAN JOHN (Y9) This article placed 3rd in the WBGS Fuller Research Prize Competition 2022. Childhood and Family  Mao Zedong (毛泽东), was born in December 1893 in a small town named Shaoshan village. His father was called Mao Yichang and was a former peasant who had become one of the richest and most successful farmers in the area. Whilst growing up in this area, his father had taught Zedong discipline and was noted to harshly beat his children for just the slightest of mistakes. Mao also had a strict Buddhist upbringing mainly due to his mother, Wen Qimei, who was a devoted Buddhist. However, these teachings did not last for long: in his mid-teen years, Zedong completely abandoned the religion.  At the age of 8, Zedong was sent to the local Shaoshan school, in which he was taught how to read and write. He later said that he did not much enjoy schooling, as it included reading many classical Chinese texts, which he found extremely boring. He enjoyed reading western novels...