A Point of View

Will Self explores what he sees as a growing sense of collective hypocrisy. He looks at why we're often so reluctant to use the word "hypocrisy" and argues that we accept hypocrisy in part because "civilisation as currently constituted would be quite impossible without a whole panoply of carefully evolved rituals designed to elide incompatible acts and beliefs". Producer: Adele Armstrong

"After months of hearing about the climate emergency", writes Rebecca Stott, "I thought it would be a good thing to spend some time around a species that was doing really well". She decided to become a seal warden...but the job is rather different from what she was expecting. "This wild, old, slithery, stinking world of the sand dunes really isn't cute" she says. "But there are some things in nature, dare I say it, that are a lot more interesting than cute". Producer: Adele Armstrong

"I've long been fascinated with taxidermy", writes Rebecca Stott, "but it disturbs me". She explains why - after many years - she's made her peace with taxidermy. "After all, can we really be all high-horse-ish about the way our ancestors shot, classified and stuffed everything in their path, given how much damage we've done to species and their habitats in the last fifty years alone?" Producer: Adele Armstrong

“Whatever humans do, the world is not going to end”, writes John Gray. “Humankind cannot destroy the planet any more than it can save it”. John Gray ponders why the belief that the human world can be completely and suddenly transformed, never really goes away. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"I can no longer force myself", writes Will Self, "to make choices that appear quite meaningless to me". He outlines why he decided - for the first time in his life - not to cast a vote in the election. Producer: Adele Armstrong

John Gray tells the story of Archy and Mehitabel, a newspaper column created in 1916 by the US journalist Don Marquis. It chronicles the conversations between a cockroach and a cat and was a phenomenal success with a readership who "mistrusted politicians and intellectuals who talked grandly of a radiant future". John Gray reflects on the lessons for today. Producer: Adele Armstrong ,

Following the death of the brilliantly funny Clive James - one of the first presenters of "A Point of View" - this is one of his early talks for the series. In this programme - first broadcast in 2007 - Clive ponders what makes us happy. In his own pursuit of happiness, he sits on a bench in Central Park, relives his first slice of watermelon and considers the wise words of Lawrence of Arabia. Producer: Adele Armstrong Originally produced by Rosie Goldsmith

"In all things erotic", writes Adam Gopnik, "morals and manners run at right angles to each other". Adam argues that the much discussed "sex recession" in the US is primarily a question of misunderstanding between generations - and is certainly not a cause for moral panic! "We misread the sex because the signs change, and we misread the signs to mean that the sex is changing...or even that the sex is vanishing". Producer: Adele Armstrong

"Only when I wander, usually by accident, into my spam box", writes Adam Gopnik, "do I find anything resembling actual affection - prose that captures the spark of human sympathy, the language of exquisite deference, that the Enlightenment philosophers insisted was the necessary mucilage of human societies".The excessive courtesy of spam letters is, of course, designed to entrap the reader but why, Adam wonders, have the decencies of human correspondence disappeared from virtually all other forms of communication these days. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"Finding, promoting and revaluing women artists through the ages", writes Sarah Dunant, "has been one of the great – albeit still ongoing – cultural success stories of our time". Sarah discusses the undervalued women of art who are being rediscovered in large numbers - and the very modern stories they tell. Producer: Adele Armstrong