J.J. Charlesworth Capitalism is making us mentally ill because we’ve all accepted its new message – that our freedom can be found in our constant self-realisation, which turns out to be our never- ending self-exploitation. That’s the driving message of Byung-Chul Han’s newly translated extended essay (it’s 130 pages long), but its bleak diagnosis of… Read More Topology of Violence, by Byung-Chul Han
Lessons From the Start of a Cold War. By Fredrik Logevall January/February 2023 We all read him, those of us who did graduate work in U.S. diplomatic history in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For although there were other important figures in modern U.S. foreign relations, only one was George Kennan, the “father of containment,”… Read More The Ghosts of Kennan
Love lights more fires // than hate extinguishes Ella Wheeler Wilcox – 1850-1919 What can be said in New Year rhymes,That’s not been said a thousand times? The new years come, the old years go,We know we dream, we dream we know. We rise up laughing with the light,We lie down weeping with the night. We… Read More The Year
Anton Cebalo Ever since a notorious chart showing that fewer people are having sex than ever before first made the rounds, there’s been increased interest in the state of America’s social health. Polling has demonstrated a marked decline in all spheres of social life, including close friendships, intimate relationships, trust, labor participation and community involvement. The continuing… Read More Is America suffering a ‘social recession’?
Bharat Bhushan Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) has become a headache for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Not only is it startled by the public response to the BJY north of the Vindhyas, but it can sense that Rahul Gandhi’s emerging leadership style offers a real challenge to that of the BJP’s top leaders.… Read More Rahul Gandhi’s alternative approach to leadership
David Cox what if I told you that stress can also be positive? That just as it can harm us, it also plays a key role in strengthening our immune system, forging connections in our brain that improve mental performance and building the resilience we need to navigate our way through the vagaries of life.… Read More Why everyday stress could be the key to a healthy old age
Flora Feltham on Mana The island where I live, Te Mana o Kupe o Aotearoa, sits half an hour off the coast of New Zealand’s north island. It has one house and a permanent human population of two: my husband, Pat, and me. In April, this will increase to three because we’re having a baby.… Read More One house, two people and some rare flightless birds: welcome to Mana Island
Byung-Chul Han is a South Korea-born German philosopher and cultural theorist whose recent books include “The Burnout Society” and “The Disappearance of Rituals.” He recently spoke to Nathan Gardels, Noema’s editor-in-chief. Nathan Gardels: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once commented that: “When eras are on the decline, all tendencies are subjective; but, on the other hand, when matters… Read More All That Is Solid Melts Into Information
NB: Goa was my dear mother’s birthplace and childhood home. The events described below took place not far from her village, Saligaon. This is a beautiful story of life and fate. I have nothing to add to it except to wish this couple many years of the togetherness brought about by their chance encounter in… Read More Love and serendipity in Goa
First posted November 11, 2016 A few weeks ago, five people who were selling papers outside Hyde Park were arrested by the police for obstruction. When taken before the magistrates, they were all found guilty, four of them being bound over for six months and the other sentenced to forty shillings fine or a month’s… Read More George Orwell: Freedom of the Park (1945)
After the truth-shower 