Note: The author highlights very interesting aspects of the current situation of Israeli Zionism, the most relevant is the assimilation of the Zionist Jews of Israel within the nation-state model of the Western societies. Moreover, by negating the reality of the exile, a general condition of the people of the world, the essence of Judaism… Read More Giorgio Agamben on Zionism and Judaism (2024)
A decisive part of the trauma experienced by Palestinians in Germany comes not only from its being rendered taboo, but also from what Pierre Bourdieu calls symbolic violence. The term describes the violence of those discourses that normalize and legitimize systemic violence…. Symbolic violence justifies the expulsion and dispossession of Palestinians and the seizure of… Read More Oblivion Culture: Countering the German taboo on Palestinian trauma
By Thomas Friedman ; New York Times; December 17, 2024 I just spent a week in Beijing and Shanghai, meeting with Chinese officials, economists, and entrepreneurs, so let me get straight to the point: while we sleep, China has made tremendous leaps in high-tech manufacturing. If no one has told Donald Trump, then I will: his… Read More How Elon Musk and Taylor Swift Might Solve US-China Relations
NB: It could also be called the standardisation of thought; the co-option of history by ideology, and the elevation of outrage to an art form. DS Apoorvanand Historian Aparna Vaidik is under attack on social media. A controversy arose following a discussion on her new book at a lit fest in Kanpur. It was alleged that Vaidik… Read More Bhagat Singh, Kanpur lit fest, and the culture of hasty comment
The architect of the Constitution railing against Hindu Raj while also being conflicted about Dalits adopting Christianity or Islam as this would ‘denationalise’ them exemplifies his life of contradictions. Ambedkar also warns, “If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country.… Hindu Raj must be prevented… Read More Ambedkar’s pact with a Hindutvadi
André Rieu and his orchestra and choir make people happy all over the world. Music is living proof that the human spirit is a reality. They are good people, God bless them. A happy new year to all. Pray for the children of Palestine André Rieu – Christmas Down Under (Live in Sydney) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Handel’s… Read More André Rieu – Christmas Down Under (Live in Sydney)
ADAM TOOZE Conducted in the summer of 2024 in Shanghai this interview with Ding Xionfei is the most far-reaching public discussion I have had had about the development of my writing and thinking since Perry Anderson’s review of my work. I want to thank Ding Xiongfei for his remarkable engagement and for permission to republish part… Read More Adam Tooze on Polycrisis and technocratic complacency. Interview with Ding Xiongfei from the Shanghai Review of Books
This war should have ended a long time ago, and Israel continues and continues, really now without any purpose except of mass killing — killing and killing and killing for the sake of killing: Gideon Levy In northern Gaza, the director of the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital says five medical workers were among 50 people killed… Read More Gideon Levy on Israel’s ‘Moral Blindness’: Gaza Babies Freeze, Strikes Kill Medical Workers, Reporters
Apocalyptic thought in the aftermath of the world wars George Prochnik and Anson Rabinbach In what way does writing about catastrophe, either predictively or retrospectively, risk kindling a new blaze? Conversely, is it possible to identify aspects of such texts that work against the drive to catastrophe? Conventional wisdom suggests that temporal distance from historical… Read More In the Shadow of Catastrophe: An Interview
It’s a conundrum of the philosopher’s biography that most basic human needs were alien to her By Judith Thurman The French philosopher Simone Weil was a soul at odds with herself and with a world of affliction. The causes she espoused as a social activist and the faith she professed as a mystic were urgent to… Read More The Supreme Contradictions of Simone Weil
After the truth-shower 