To be human is to be artificial Bo Winegard The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.~Oscar Wilde That we should not lie is generally sound advice, though few of us are able to navigate life without uttering or affirming… Read More Against Authenticity
Ben Okri NB: This is a fascinating meditation, not merely on the Queen, but on God, monarchy, twentieth-century history and impermanence. Not to mention our regard for sheer human decency. Well written sir. DS Monarchs have passed away before, but there is something special which Queen Elizabeth has done, which makes it harder for the… Read More Queen Elizabeth was part of our psyche
Justin McCurry “It is broadly about what’s going on in the world … about the climate crisis and what we should do about it,” Saito said in an interview with the Guardian. “I advocate for degrowth and going beyond capitalism.” Kohei Saito’s book Capital in the Anthropocene has become an unlikely hit among young people… Read More Karl Marx in the Anthropocene: the post-capitalist, green manifesto captivating Japan
The Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 brought the miseries of the region’s peasants to official notice. A volume of 165 testimonies of peasants translated into English is revealing of their wretched lives, but many aspects of the struggle remain unexplored and there remain gaps in our understanding. MOHAMMAD SAJJAD Thumb Printed: Champaran Indigo Peasants Speak to… Read More Book review: Chronicles of the Champaran Satyagraha
Andrew Gawthorpe In the end, Maga is nothing but a scam with hate in its heart and other people’s money in its pockets. By all appearances, Steve Bannon likes to think that he represents the soul of the Maga movement. He sees himself as a tireless champion of the common man, fighting their battles against… Read More Steve Bannon’s indictment reveals the truth about Trumpism
Kitsch is a German word that’s been adopted by a number of other languages, including English. It refers primarily to art that is overly sentimental or melodramatic, and so refers to aesthetics. What’s interesting is the way Kundera uses the concept in his novel, not to talk about art, but to talk about political ideology.… Read More Milan Kundera's use of Kitsch
First posted June 29, 2016 It is no exaggeration to say that with 1989 a long historical phase – the one initiated by the October Revolution of 1917 – came to its end. From now on, whatever might be the future of socialism, it will have to be established on radically new foundations, beyond the… Read More Book review: Conceptualizing an Emancipatory Alternative: Peter Hudis reviews István Mészáros’s ‘Beyond Capital’
KUNAL DUTT NB: Like Kishanji, resident of Varanasi (quoted below) I too was a small boy, just less than eleven years of age, when Queen Elizabeth arrived in Delhi in January 1961. Us schoolchildren (from what is now called the Army Public School), were taken to Sardar Patel road, to welcome her. We stood on… Read More When the Queen came calling in 1961
The climate crisis has driven the world to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, according to a major study. It shows five dangerous tipping points may already have been passed due to the 1.1C of global heating caused by humanity to date. These include the collapse of Greenland’s ice cap, eventually producing a huge sea level rise,… Read More World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, study finds
New research shows small gestures matter even more than we may think. By Catherine Pearson In late August, Erin Alexander, 57, sat in the parking lot of a Target store in Fairfield, Calif., and wept. Her sister-in-law had recently died, and Ms. Alexander was having a hard day. A barista working at the Starbucks inside the… Read More The Unexpected Power of Random Acts of Kindness
After the truth-shower 