In the Advent Term 2024 the Lower Sixth met the challenge of the Heresy Project with aplomb, relishing the opportunity to demolish stale intellectual orthodoxies in extended essays of 1,500 to 2,000 words. They produced a particularly fine crop of heretical writing: elegantly acerbic, intelligent and research rich. Their engaged and unflinching commitment to defending their causes certainly defied the novelist Olivia Manning’s wry despair that ‘truth is a luxury. We can only afford it now and then’. Indeed, this year saw some of the best heretical writing yet, arguing for a formidable array of causes. Lancing’s long tradition of punchy, well-read independence of thought is unquestionably riding high. The Handmaid’s Tale was rescued from its dystopian silo, male hormonal birth control encouraged and democratic capitalism put in the dock!
LANCING HERESY PROJECT 2024–2025
The 2024–2025 collection contains the final shortlist of the best heretical essays. It also includes the winning heretical entries. It was a real labour of love to make a final decision on the attached shortlist, and about twenty more essays could have been included in Lancing’s heretical firmament. After intense discussion, a grand jury in the Common Room of Dr Kerney, Dr Herbert, Mr Harman and Mrs Mole agreed on the winners from the shortlist; and it was decided that three entrants should be jointly awarded the top prize. These three outstanding essays were marked out by the particularly rich subtlety of their arguments, their knowing panache and by the way in which they drew deftly on well marshalled research to lay into their heretical targets: just the top flight intellectual qualities looked for by the very best universities.
Lancing’s winning heretical trinity for 2024–25 comprises:
- Izzy B for her essay: ‘Criminal responsibility in law is overrated. Just ask science’.
- Bella B for her essay: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale is not dystopian fiction’.
- Maria N for her essay: ‘Humanity just can’t help itself’.
Dr Damian Kerney
Head of History and Sixth Form Enrichment
Previous editions of the Lancing Heresy Project
Lancing Heresy Project 2023–2024
Lancing Heresy Project 2022–2023
