First posted March 29, 2017 Foucault’s argument that knowledge is historically contingent must itself be historically contingent, and one wonders why Derrida bothered to explain the infinite malleability of texts at such length if I could read his entire body of work and claim it to be a story about bunny rabbits Post-modernism and the… Read More Helen Pluckrose: Postmodernism and its impact, explained
Standing in a row outside the gates of Godhra remand center in Gujarat, western India, the 11 middle-aged men could have been mistaken for visiting dignitaries receiving sweets and blessings from local admirers. In reality, they were part of a 2002 Hindu mob who had just been released after serving 14 years of life sentences for one… Read More Her rapists were sentenced to life in prison. Now they’re free, and she’s in hiding
Peter Pomerantsev I was in gorgeous, courageous Kyiv on Monday when the latest Russian missile shower hit Ukraine, murdering civilians and knocking out heat and light on the cusp of winter. Kyivans took it calmly. My meeting smoothly transferred from a cafe to the metro, where we chain-drank coffee and carried on under the sirens… Read More Russia’s genocidal propaganda must not be passed off as freedom of speech
SHEKHAR GUPTA Who speaks for India’s Muslims now? Who can, or is even trying to fill the Mulayam Singh Yadav-sized hole there? The answer is none. The BJP’s rivals want the votes of Muslims, but are frightened of being seen as their leaders. For clarity, this week’s National Interest isn’t yet another obituary, tribute or… Read More Press mute for Indian Muslims: Gujarat flogging shows up ‘secular’ silence of Indian politics
By Alasdair Howorth After six years of preparation, struggle and sacrifice, Felix Baumgartner found himself quite literally on the edge of the world. “I’m standing there on top of the world outside of a capsule in space and in the stratosphere. I looked around the sky above me was completely black,” Baumgartner told CNN Sport’s Patrick Snell as… Read More Just me and the Sky: The man who fell 24 miles
Martin Chulov in Erbil, Iraq Picking through a pile of twisted metal, Rebaz, a Kurdish Iranian fighter, stooped to cradle a jagged chrome piece that was dug from the ruins of his base. “This was part of a Fateh missile,” he said. “It’s one of the biggest that the Iranians have in their arsenal. It’s from… Read More Kurds shelled as Iran seeks scapegoats for unrest
People all seek to know what they do not know yet;they ought rather seek to know what they know already: Zhuang Zhou (369-286 BC) Food, not PCR tests … Reform, not the Cultural Revolution … We want to be citizens, not slaves.” And alongside that, most astonishingly, a call to overthrow Xi Jinping. The man who dared to unveil… Read More Xi Jinping and China’s party congress: no end in sight
Andy Beckett Neoliberalism, the belief that free markets, low taxes and a state with little or no interest in equality will produce the best economic and social outcomes, has fallen out of fashion even among the business elite and their chroniclers. In the Financial Times this week, the columnist Rana Foroohar argued that the west… Read More Truss is frantically blowing on the embers of neoliberalism. But it is a funeral pyre
First posted July 22, 2017 Sam Kriss Neoliberalism is not particularly hard to define. It’s not only an ideology or a set of principles; it’s a system of practices, and an era, the one we’re living in now. What it means, over and above everything, is untrammeled ruling-class power, an end to the class-collaborationism of… Read More ‘Neoliberalism’ isn’t a left-wing insult but a monstrous political system of inequality
Mainpuri – Fears are growing for the survival of a 15-year-old girl who was allegedly set on fire by a family member who is also accused of raping her as she fights for her life at a hospital in northern India. In a case that has shocked the country, police in Uttar Pradesh state arrested an 18-year-old man… Read More Teenage girl fights for her life in India after alleged rapist’s fire attack
After the truth-shower 