Tag: critical commentary

Antifragile: How to Live in a World We Don't Understand by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – review

Nassim Taleb divides the world and all that’s in it (people, things, institutions, ways of life) into three categories: the fragile, the robust and the antifragile. You are fragile if you avoid disorder and disruption for fear of the mess they might make of your life: you think you are keeping safe, but really you are… Read More Antifragile: How to Live in a World We Don't Understand by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – review

Dilip

Edin Hajdarpasic: What use is fact-checking against fact-free politics?

Asking historians to dig deep into bluntly ahistorical political claims is like sending a scuba-diving team into a bathtub. But beyond fact-checking obviously false claims, of what use can professional historians be to society? In an age of denialism, one has to embrace history’s political potentials instead of reducing them to the task of safekeeping… Read More Edin Hajdarpasic: What use is fact-checking against fact-free politics?

Dilip

Chris Hedges and Mark Rudd Discuss Self Destructive Forces on the Left

NB: This argument is an American counterpart of my understanding about the delusions of revolutionary extremism. These delusions are to be found amongst extremist nationalists too, who also see themselves as revolutionaries. These ideological pipe-dreams are fueled by visions of forcing human character into new a mould (determined by the Headquarters of Truth), an addiction to totalitarian… Read More Chris Hedges and Mark Rudd Discuss Self Destructive Forces on the Left

Dilip

Rebecca Solnit: Why are US rightwingers so angry? Because they know social change is coming

White people are not being replaced, but in many ways a white supremacist history and society is…. In 2018, halfway through the Trump presidency, Michelle Alexander wrote a powerful essay arguing that we are not the resistance. We, she declared, are the mighty river they are trying to dam. I see it flowing, and I see the… Read More Rebecca Solnit: Why are US rightwingers so angry? Because they know social change is coming

Dilip

Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The limits of the Hindu vs Hindutvavadi debate

NB: This is a thoughtful article. The author reminds us that good and evil, better and worse, cruelty and kindness, decency and barbarity co-exist in all cultures, and all communities, religious or otherwise. In brief, these qualities are part of what it means to be human; and they cut across the boundaries of time, place… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The limits of the Hindu vs Hindutvavadi debate

Dilip

Modern life is giving us brain fatigue. By Mary E. Williams

Reading Dr. Mark Rego’s provocative, intense Frontal Fatigue: The Impact of Modern Life and Technology on Mental Illness, I found myself thinking of David Foster Wallace’s “This Is Water.”  In it, the late author observes the need to be aware of “what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us.”  Today, we live in a culture that… Read More Modern life is giving us brain fatigue. By Mary E. Williams

Dilip

PHIL TORRES: How the New Atheists merged with the far right

New Atheism appeared to offer moral clarity, it emphasized intellectual honesty and it embraced scientific truths about the nature and workings of reality. It gave me immense hope to know that in a world overflowing with irrationality, there were clear-thinking individuals with sizable public platforms willing to stand up for what’s right and true — to… Read More PHIL TORRES: How the New Atheists merged with the far right

Dilip

A green paradox: Deforesting the Amazon for wind energy

Balsa wood is used in Europe, and also more intensively in China, as a component in the construction of the blades of wind turbines. Already-installed wind turbines, with blades that stretch to 80 metres, can cover an area of approximately 21,000 square metres, which is equivalent to about three football pitches. More recent wind turbine designs can… Read More A green paradox: Deforesting the Amazon for wind energy

Dilip