Staying Human Series EP#04: Useful Lives - with Dan Hitchens

In this time of deep change, it is vital to find ways of staying human—and to do so within a constructive story of spiritual and civic renewal. Everything seems to be unravelling, including what it means to care for each other and even how we understand life and death. Serious questions lie before us: How can we restore our common life? How can we stay human? In this episode, Useful Lives, Dan Hitchens asks what the advance of assisted suicide really means. Dan addresses the profound cultural shift signaled by current legislation, marking a transition from the era of Cicely Saunders and the hospice movement to a new age where death is presented as a solution to what some advocates refer to as ‘useless lives.’ Setting the contemporary debate in its historical context, Dan prompts us to consider how we should respond to this hinge moment for British society. Dan Hitchens is the Senior Editor at First Things magazine and a contributor to Compact, Unherd, The New Statesman, The Spectator, The Critic, Christianity Magazine, and various other publications. Formerly, he edited the Catholic Herald. As a freelance journalist, Dan has been conducting a forensic examination into the issue of assisted suicide which can be found on X at @ddhitchens. He holds a PhD on the 18th-century author Samuel Johnson, who is the guiding spirit for his personal newsletter. Dan is also the co-author of The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Johnson (Cambridge University Press, 2025). He writes on Substack here. Read Dan’s text here. This is the fourth in our Staying Human series. This event was convened and moderated by Jenny Sinclair, Founder Director of Together for the Common Good, and took place on 21 November 2025 in London before an invited audience. Learn more about Together for the Common Good at t4cg.substack.com. Listen to our sister podcast, Leaving Egypt, where we read the signs of the times and explore what it means to be God’s people in these times of unravelling: leavingegypt.com. Get full access to Together for the Common Good at t4cg.substack.com/subscribe