into our wardrobe of masks for each role we play; we search for something tomake (our) voice(s) heard, something to make sound(s) through (a persona ). We are not grounded, and have no depth. Spooks , two-dimensional as it necessarily is, also has no depth. It represents MI-5 not so much as a security service as a security surface. As it happens, while I binge-watched Spooks , I was reading John Farrell’s biography of Richard Nixon, and Sue Prideaux’s of Friedrich Nietzsche. Both books require as much a commitment of time as Spooks and, while apparently different both to each other as well as to the TV show, they both betray an interest in the varieties and compromises of power, in the multiplicity of self-presentation, in the distortions of history and the unreliability of narrators. 7 So, in the shadows of disease and political turbulence, I have chanced upon an ad hoc trinity of reflections on power, and on the limits and possibilities of the self. A few words about this year’s issue. I am very happy that I have been able to include the arresting and evocative photographs taken by Ed Brilliant. The writing has been organized under headings taken from Ancient Greek (translations are given below). This has allowed previously unforeseen groupings of essays: drone technology sits next to Chaucer, for instance, and quantum theory is tied up with law and morality. The use of the Greek concepts is a reminder that the divisions of human knowledge are local and historical rather than fixed. 8 Many of the essays in this volume are written by students now in their final year at the College. However, there are a number of essays which were entered for the Gareth Evans Essay Competition (open to Middle School students), with the youngest of the essay writers currently in Year 9. (Essays can be reached from the contents page by clicking on the title.)
Neil Croally Editor June 2020
Works cited
Derrida, J. (1993) Specters of Marx . London Dunn, J. (2003) Locke: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford
Farrell, J. (2017) Richard Nixon: The Life . London Foucault, M. (1970) The Order of Things . New York Prideaux, S. (2018) I am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche . London Roth, P. (2000) The Human Stain. Boston Runciman, D. (2019) Where Power Stops. The Making and Unmaking of Presidents and Prime Ministers. London Thomson, D. (2015) Why Acting Matters . New Haven
7 Runciman 2019 is a more journalistic but no less entertaining treatment of some of these same themes. 8 For a lengthy discussion, see Foucault 1970.
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