I have been translating from the French some chapters about John of Salisbury, a 12th-century Anglo-Saxon cleric and jurist. He became secretary first to one archbishop of Canterbury, and then to Thomas Becket. He was in Canterbury when Thomas was killed, and he finished his life as bishop of Chartres.

The third and last of the chapters discusses John and the law. So far as I can see, from my humble tertiary position in the academic hurly-burly, it seems that John's main concern in life was to impose limits on the whims of princes, and to emphasize the centrality of an objective quality of equity as the ultimate arbiter of justice. To him, of course, this quality was divine, but today, perhaps, we might just as well call it natural law, or, in the absence of a god, endeavour to rationalize it as some kind of universal imperative. I have a feeling, based largely on ignorance, that philosophers don't concern themselves much with such things in these times. But perhaps we all should.

For, if we don't try to base our actions on some such universal system of values, even if we have to invent it, I think we risk descending into a new kind of barbarism. Of course, sections of the human race have already been there in the last hundred years or so. Some are still living there. Perhaps it is the fate of civilized humanity to exist on a precariously thin crust of decency, sometimes breaking through, often covering our faces to mask out the stench that rises from the fissures. Perhaps it's the same old kind of barbarism after all.

I'm trying, I really am trying, not to descend into a political rant. I think of those medieval scholars working in the opposite camp to John of Salisbury, trying hard to justify the barbarity of their secular rulers, and the parallels with our present-day situation are so apparent that, really, it's not worth going further into them. Sufficient to say that I think John of Salisbury would have been saddened at the venality, the casual amorality of our present baby-faced, baby-minded rulers, and would wonder what we had been doing in the intervening 850 years.

I pointed out to someone on Twitter the other day that their views on political and social inclusiveness were very totalitarian. They replied, *shrug*, it's what the majority think. John, John, where are you? We need someone who cares about truth, or at least about the search for some truth. Edward Snowden? Ah, I feel a bit better.

I watched the Wikileaks film Mediastan. A fine, interesting work on many levels. John of Salisbury was looking over my shoulder, open-mouthed. Access it via http://wikileaks.org/Mediastan.html . Mind, it will cost you £1.20 for a week's rental, incl. VAT.