Orwellian nightmares: What I learned about today’s rage culture from rewriting 1984

At the time I was reimagining this scene, I spent much of my day on Twitter. It was early 2021, and everyone there was chronically angry. People communicated by jeering, trading insults, hectoring, flinging accusations… It was like being in an abusive relationship with everyone in the world. Sandra Newman A few years ago, I… Read More Orwellian nightmares: What I learned about today’s rage culture from rewriting 1984

8th October 20238th October 2023 Dilip

Hannah Arendt: pariah and 21st-century cosmopolitan

First posted July 11, 2015 “I have never in my life ‘loved’ any people or collective – neither the German people, nor the French, nor the American, nor the working class or anything of that sort. I indeed love ‘only’ my friends and the only kind of love I know of and believe in is… Read More Hannah Arendt: pariah and 21st-century cosmopolitan

7th October 2023 Dilip

Etel Adnan: To Be In A Time Of War

First posted May 13, 2016 NB: Etel Adnan, writer, poet, artist and musician was born in 1925 and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her mother was a Greek from Smyrna, her father, a high ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus. This prose poem is the final chapter of her book In the Heart of the Heart of Another… Read More Etel Adnan: To Be In A Time Of War

2nd October 20231st October 2023 Dilip

Against the Illusion of Separateness: Pablo Neruda’s Beautiful Nobel Acceptance Speech. By Maria Popova

NB: I post this as a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 154th birthday. DS First posted December 31, 2018 “There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth… Read More Against the Illusion of Separateness: Pablo Neruda’s Beautiful Nobel Acceptance Speech. By Maria Popova

1st October 20231st October 2023 Dilip

How identity politics took over America

In his new book, Yascha Mounk tells a story about how identity politics took over The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time Review by Oliver Traldi Has American society undergone a “Great Awokening,” in which identity — race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality — has become the yardstick by which all else… Read More How identity politics took over America

28th September 2023 Dilip

Tactics, ethics, or temporality? Heidegger’s politics (1995)

First posted July 12, 2013 Hugo Ott, Martin Heidegger: A Political Life, 1993 Hans Sluga, Heidegger’s Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany, 1993 Theodore Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time, 1993 Reviewed by Peter Osborne – click for a pdf: Radical Philosophy 070 (Mar/Apr 1995) There are moments in the reception of particular thinkers – especially in… Read More Tactics, ethics, or temporality? Heidegger’s politics (1995)

28th September 2023 Dilip

This is the Time to Be Slow

First posted April 02, 2020 This is the time to be slow,Lie low to the wallUntil the bitter weather passes. Try, as best you can, not to letThe wire brush of doubtScrape from your heartAll sense of yourselfAnd your hesitant light. If you remain generous,Time will come good;And you will find your feetAgain on fresh… Read More This is the Time to Be Slow

24th September 202323rd September 2023 Dilip

Moonlight Sonata. By Yiannis Ritsos

A spring evening. A large room in an old house. A woman of a certain age, dressed inblack, is speaking to a young man. They have not turned on the lights. Through bothwindows the moonlight shines relentlessly. I forgot to mention that the Woman inBlack has published two or three interesting volume of poetry with… Read More Moonlight Sonata. By Yiannis Ritsos

23rd September 202323rd September 2023 Dilip

Dinanath Nadim: Kashmir’s forgotten poet by Mohan K. Tikku

First posted March 09, 2017 The most outstanding figure in 20th century Kashmiri literature has also been the least published poet of his generation. To his many readers and admirers, Dinanath Nadim has been a bit of a paradox. In a literary career extending over half a century, Nadim (1916-89) wrote a lot but published little. Partly,… Read More Dinanath Nadim: Kashmir’s forgotten poet by Mohan K. Tikku

23rd September 202324th October 2025 Dilip

After the truth-shower

Philosophy, history, literature, current affairs, and other stuff. Posted by Dilip Simeon

Tag: Books and literature