Tag: History

Alexander Stern: What the Frankfurt School has to stay about bureaucratic progressivism

“Cultural Marxism” is often invoked by some on the right to explain the rise of “woke” politics in universities, newsrooms, and corporations. According to this well-rehearsed line of criticism, the fixation on race and gender, the erosion of free speech, and the high-pitched frenzy of political correctness and cancellation, are nothing less than a communist… Read More Alexander Stern: What the Frankfurt School has to stay about bureaucratic progressivism

Dilip

Jaap Kloosterman: Secret Societies – a history

Attempts to circumscribe our topic are naturally hampered by the fact that secrecy is a many-sided thing. The expression “secret societies” evokes a Wittgensteinian family resemblance of a great variety of organisations with all sorts of similarities, yet not a single feature common to all. As a result, most existing definitions are accompanied by abundant… Read More Jaap Kloosterman: Secret Societies – a history

Dilip

Cutlet for Cutlet

NB: The comment below is taken from Jairus Banaji’s Facebook page dated June 13, 2021 The title of this blogpost is me being sarcastic. I had originally titled it Sovereignty of Capital or Nation as property, but thought it redundant. No comment is required. Readers might be interested in this investigation, and Bharat Bhushan’s report on  the Scania… Read More Cutlet for Cutlet

Dilip

“I can most highly recommend the Gestapo to everyone” – Sigmund Freud, 1938

“What progress we are making! In the middle ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.”   Late in May 1938, an 82-year old Sigmund Freud and his family were in Vienna eagerly awaiting the final details to be sorted before they could leave their country for good. There was no… Read More “I can most highly recommend the Gestapo to everyone” – Sigmund Freud, 1938

Dilip

Alexxa Gotthardt: Unraveling the mysteries of ancient Egypt's spellbinding mummy portraits

While ancient Egyptian mummy portraits have long been objects of curiosity, only a minimal amount of scholarship exists about them. Many questions have lingered since they were uncovered by archeologists around the Egyptian city of Fayum in the late 1800s. Who painted them? What pigments and substrates did the artists use, and where were these… Read More Alexxa Gotthardt: Unraveling the mysteries of ancient Egypt's spellbinding mummy portraits

Dilip

Joyce Cheng: Tiananmen Square protesters remember the bonds they formed with the Chinese police who held them captive

Chen Tianshi has kept a secret for the past 32 years. The former student activist was a key organiser of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and was arrested in the aftermath of the massacre. Out of the bloody crackdown, unlikely friendships formed between some protesters and their captors. Today, on the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen… Read More Joyce Cheng: Tiananmen Square protesters remember the bonds they formed with the Chinese police who held them captive

Dilip

Jawaharlal Nehru's 57th death anniversary / ‘हिंद के जवाहर’ का जाना…

Today, May 27, is Jawaharlal Nehru’s 57th death anniversary. Jawaharlal (1889-1964) was an anti-fascist activist, fighter for India’s freedom, Mahatma Gandhi’s chosen political heir, India’s first & greatest Prime Minister &, above all, a decent human being. I recall being a 14 year-old schoolboy, in Sainik School Kunjpura, on a trek to the Pindari glacier, when… Read More Jawaharlal Nehru's 57th death anniversary / ‘हिंद के जवाहर’ का जाना…

Dilip

Ravi Bhoothalingam: Coronavirus and the Mandate of Heaven (March 13, 2020)

NB: This thoughtful essay appeared a year ago. I planned to post it then, but it seems much more appropriate to be read now. It reads like a prophesy. DS    The Mandate of Heaven is an ancient Chinese philosophical doctrine evolved during the Zhou dynasty in the first millennium BCE, to confer on an… Read More Ravi Bhoothalingam: Coronavirus and the Mandate of Heaven (March 13, 2020)

Dilip

Allah Baksh’s 60th death anniversary: May 14; 2021. By Anil Nauriya

Allah Baksh versus Savarkar    Soon after the assassination of the legendary Allah Baksh on May 14, 1943, a young Sikh in Lahore wrote an elementary biography of the murdered leader. The first part of the title of the book by Jagat Singh Bright was “India’s Nationalist No 1”. Today, 60 years after the killing, India… Read More Allah Baksh’s 60th death anniversary: May 14; 2021. By Anil Nauriya

Dilip