First posted December 05, 2016 In honour of Adam Zagajewski being awarded the 2016 Jean Améry Prize for European essay writing, Eurozine publishes Zagajewski’s defence of ardour. That is, true ardour, which doesn’t divide but unifies; and leads neither to fanaticism nor to fundamentalism. We’re left with the impression that the present day favours only… Read More Adam Zagajewski: A defence of ardour
Albert Camus speech at Uppsala University; on December 14, 1957, four days after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature. In Create Dangerously: The Power and Responsibility of the Artist; he argued “To create today means to create dangerously. Every publication is a deliberate act, and that act makes us vulnerable to the passions of a… Read More Albert Camus: Create Dangerously (1957)
There Are Places In The World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness By Carlo Rovelli Reviewed by Pratik Kanjilal “To hear a cultivated person of today joking almost boastfully that they are completely ignorant about science is as depressing as hearing a scientist bragging that they have never read a poem,” writes the Italian… Read More A mind without borders
by Blake Smith REVIEW ESSAYNot Thinking Like a Liberal by Raymond Geuss Raymond Geuss, Cambridge philosopher, is a prominent critic of liberalism and neoliberalism, and of the tradition of anglophone analytic political philosophy that he sees as their ideological prop. His scholarship, since the 1970s, can be read as an attempt to model another form of… Read More An Illiberal Life
First posted May 26, 2019 NB: Ambedkar’s book is a crucial archive for the climate of the times in which it was written. A noticeable feature is the extensive research, done in short time, soon after the Muslim League’s Lahore Resolution in March 1940. It is also noteworthy that he used stereotypes, fairly common in… Read More Extracts from B. R. Ambedkar’s book on Pakistan (1940, 1945)
First posted December 21, 2011 A truly unique novel, The Crock of Gold (1912) is a mixture of philosophy, Irish folklore and the never-ending battle of the sexes, written with charm, humour and good grace. It achieved enduring popularity, and was frequently reprinted throughout the author’s lifetime. NB: A beautiful book! There’s a free copy… Read More James Stephens’ ‘The Crock of Gold’
NB: The citations below have been taken from this Facebook page. I will add to them with my own selection of citations in addition to more taken from the above page. The additions will be at the top after this is posted, so as to make it easier for those who have already seen it.… Read More Philosophical thoughts
First posted June, 2021 NB: George Orwell was born in Motihari, Bihar, in 1903. I posted this video and collection of links on him in 2013, but find it necessary to remind ourselves of his continuing relevance. This was his final warning; and a full documentary of his life may be found here. With the… Read More George Orwell’s Final Warning: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever”
K. VELA VELUPILLAI A review article around Anwar Shaikh’s ‘Capitalism’, now turning into a classic Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises by Anwar Shaikh ‘Capitalist history is played out on a moving stage.’- Shaikh, 2016, p. 50 (see also p. 5; italics added). The Book 1 by Anwar Shaikh 2 which is reviewed here was published a little over six years ago;… Read More Understanding Capitalism
First posted December 3, 2016 Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion By Gareth Stedman Jones; Reviewed by Jeremy Adelman While Jenny was dying, Marx wrote a letter to the Russian Group for the Emancipation of Labour in Geneva on the question: was communal property good? Stedman Jones ends Karl Marx with a story about the fate of… Read More Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion
After the truth-shower 