Arianne Shahvisi – författare

'Brings cooling clarity to the heat of today's culture wars' Priyamvada Gopal, author of Insurgent Empire'Allows us to not only interrogate our own views, but to persuade others using reason and optimism. A must read' Aaron Bastani, author of Fully Automated Luxury CommunismCan white people be victims of racism?Is it sexist to say 'men are trash'?Should we worry about 'cancel culture'?Tired of having the same old arguments? Kicking yourself for not being able to justify your views? Wondering whether individuals can bring about meaningful change?Now imagine that instead of losing another hour of your life in a social media spat or knowing that the only way to make it through lunch was by biting your tongue, you could find a way to talk about injustice - and, just possibly, change someone's mind.Many of us know what we think about inequality, but flounder when asked for our reasoning, leading to a conversational stalemate - especially when faced with a political, generational, or cultural divide. But living in echo chambers blunts our thinking, and if we can't persuade others, we have little hope of collectively bringing about change.In Arguing for a Better World, philosopher Arianne Shahvisi draws on examples from everyday life to show us how to work through a set of thorny moral questions, equipping us to not only identify our positions but to carefully defend them.'Logical, readable, authoritative . . . An everyday manual on how oppression came about, how it works, why it persists, and how to defeat it' Danny Dorling, author of Injustice: Why Social Inequality Still Persists and A Better Politics

Can you be racist to a white person?Does cancel culture exist?Is it ever okay to laugh at jokes that rely on racist, sexist or homophobic stereotypes?Is it sexist to say 'men are trash'?These questions tap into some of today's most divisive issues, and finding an answer can often lead to confusion and resentment.Political and generational divides often dictate how questions such as these are answered, and when asked most people give automatic answers that roughly align with the broader position they believe is right - though many flounder when asked to detail their reasoning. This creates cultural and political tribes, makes people nervous about engaging at all, or leads to the issues to be trivialised or attributed to the excessive sensitivity of 'snowflakes' to 'identity politics'. You Can't Say Anything Anymore cuts right to the heart of these tensions, with the aim of demonstrating the importance of rigorous definitions and distinctions, revealing the arguments that break the stalemates, and equipping readers with the tools to identify and defend their positions. Drawing on Shahvisi's work as a philosopher, and using live controversies, well-known case studies, and personal anecdotes, this book reveals and analyses the power relations that shape our social world, and offers powerful ways to challenge them.