Tag: critical theory

Book review: The revolution will not be tweeted / Jeffrey Lawrence: Who Owns Your Academic Community?

The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas, Gal Beckerman Reviewed by Kit Wilson Radical change, as any good historian will tell you, never just comes out of nowhere. Even the most seemingly unexpected shifts in history can, with hindsight, be traced back to specific material, intellectual and political preconditions – even if,… Read More Book review: The revolution will not be tweeted / Jeffrey Lawrence: Who Owns Your Academic Community?

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Why we need a new spirit of internationalism. By EDWY PLENEL; March 4, 2022

The invasion of Ukraine is now forcing the world to face up to the unprecedented threat posed by Russian imperialism. In this op-ed article, Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel argues that what is needed is a surge of international solidarity to defend and help the Ukrainian people who are resisting that aggression. A new imperialism is threatening world… Read More Why we need a new spirit of internationalism. By EDWY PLENEL; March 4, 2022

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Marina Hyde: Putin’s tale of two cities–London for his oligarchs, Kyiv for his bombs / Oliver Bullough: Butler to the World

This afternoon, when I walk down to the opticians, I will pass some large, unconvincingly spontaneous graffiti that recently appeared on someone else’s wall. It reads: “There is no Russian interference in elections.” (Kids, eh?) Next, I will pass two vast houses that I know to be owned by oligarchs – one of whom is Roman… Read More Marina Hyde: Putin’s tale of two cities–London for his oligarchs, Kyiv for his bombs / Oliver Bullough: Butler to the World

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Adele Dipasquale: Careless mothers, sterile goddesses and ungrateful offspring

Nature is a tricky term. It can refer to the quality of things, to what moves things into existence or to the world as a whole. Read and heard, from political debate to food labelling, it is in constant use: back to nature, 100% natural, natural order, unnatural acts, natural ways of living, wisdom of… Read More Adele Dipasquale: Careless mothers, sterile goddesses and ungrateful offspring

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Chandran Nair: White privilege and global capitalism have roots in private property rights

It is rare and often uncomfortable to discuss the relationship between race and capitalism. Attributing certain economic systems to race relations and even discrimination are generally seen as reductive and even racist. Yet it is important to recognise that capitalism has a racial origin in the West – which knowingly placed white populations, and in… Read More Chandran Nair: White privilege and global capitalism have roots in private property rights

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Amit Bhaduri: The Farmers’ Protest Exposed the Limitations of Class Analysis

The farmers’ historic struggle and victory has upset not merely political arrogance but conventional wisdom in more than one way. It has shown the limitations of class analysis, and has thrown up new ideas for organizing peaceful protests in a democracy. The fact that relatively better-off farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh often led the… Read More Amit Bhaduri: The Farmers’ Protest Exposed the Limitations of Class Analysis

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George Monbiot: Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse – it’s accelerating it / Oliver Milman: Joe Manchin attracts global anger over climate crisis

There is nothing that cannot be corrupted, nothing good that cannot be transformed into something bad. And there is no clearer example than the great climate land grab. We now know that it’s not enough to leave fossil fuels in the ground and decarbonise our economies. We’ve left it too late. To prevent no more… Read More George Monbiot: Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse – it’s accelerating it / Oliver Milman: Joe Manchin attracts global anger over climate crisis

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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

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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?

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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

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