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
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
Srinath Raghavan Vinayak Chaturvedi. Hindutva and Violence: V.D. Savarkar and the Politics of History Some years before his passing in 1966, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar wrote an essay titled “How Hindu organisers should read and write their national history.” Savarkar explained that he had long intended to write this essay, but political work had taken precedence. Now, in… Read More History in the Service of Hindutva
War heightens the kaleidoscope of temporality. That you might say is the premise of Grossman’s entire book. It is an effect of combat and of the proximity of death. There would be other such moments in World War II – Bagration, Normandy, and the Battle for Berlin come to mind. But perhaps never again, indeed… Read More Reading Vasily Grossman’s ‘Stalingrad’ and ‘Life and Fate’
Kindly donate to support Mainstream Weeklyhttps://tinyurl.com/2rsy4ss6++++++ In this issue: DOCUMENTS BOOKS IMAGE & SOUND Editor’s Picks: Books of Note: Source: MAINSTREAM
NB: The notions of technofeudalism, ‘cloud capital’, ‘cloud proletarians’ and ‘cloud rent’ are insightful. Varoufakis has an active intellect and thoughtful people from all walks of life will gain from taking his ideas seriously. DS The tech giants have overthrown capitalism. That’s the argument of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who became famous trying… Read More Welcome to the Age of Technofeudalism: Yanis Varoufakis interviewed by WIRED magazine
Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know. By Mark Lilla Reviewed by John Banville This is at once a wise and wonderfully enjoyable book. Mark Lilla treats weighty matters with a light touch, in an elegant prose style that crackles with dry wit. Almost every one of the short sections into which the narrative is divided… Read More The enduring power of stupidity
Unintelligible as it is, new book is part of a ‘manifesting’ trend offering the young and spiritually lost an illusion of control Martha Gill What links these two news stories? The first: “manifesting” has been declared Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year. The self-help practice, based on the magical belief that mental rituals can move the… Read More Not quite religion, not quite self-help: welcome to the Jordan Peterson age of nonsense
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting: Milan Kundera NEW YORK: I am in the The Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center next to the St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral in Manhattan. I am holding a bound, hand-written memoir, which includes poetry, drawings, and scrapbooked images, by Zaven Seraidarian, a… Read More Chris Hedges: Organized Oblivion
After the truth-shower 