Tag: media

The media missed the biggest story: How a generation fed on consumerism and hate found its voice

NB: Listen to Arvind Anjum’s interviews with the new arrivals at the protest site. Pakistani youth express their admiration and solidarity with struggling Indian students: BBC report. DS The protest has convincingly established not just the irrelevance of legacy TV channels but also their continued abandonment of basic journalistic norms Kalpana Sharma There were broken… Read More The media missed the biggest story: How a generation fed on consumerism and hate found its voice

Dilip

Why Is Digital Freedom Making Us Exhausted and Sad? The philosophy of Byung-Chul Han

From “The Burnout Society” to “The Tonality of Thought,” tech philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s ultra-short books reveal why online liberation has felt more like voluntary captivity. Matt Elmore Byung-Chul Han is one of Europe’s most widely read philosophers. His audience in the United States has grown considerably over the last decade, though mostly outside the academy;… Read More Why Is Digital Freedom Making Us Exhausted and Sad? The philosophy of Byung-Chul Han

Dilip

The Joke Is on Us

The retreat into satirical attacks on Trump and his supporters fuels the solidification of fascism When satire is the end point, it is deleterious. It masks what is coming. It must be, as Niebuhr pointed out, the entry point. It must push us, as Gramsci understood, into hard analysis and the organization of mass movements… Read More The Joke Is on Us

Dilip

Suhas Palshikar: Anatomy of India’s New Regime

NB: An instructive essay on our current dispensation. I would sum up this regime’s method as a confusion of wisdom with cunning; its speech as unending sophistry (लफ़्फ़ाज़ी); and its goal as the eradication of simple human decency from public life. DS India’s current regime rests on three interwoven factors: Hindutva, a captured civil society,… Read More Suhas Palshikar: Anatomy of India’s New Regime

Dilip

Dear Parents: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University But Don’t

Ron Srigley Universities, in the interest of increasing enrollments (= money), are willing to flatter you and your children so shamelessly … “During one class a couple of years ago, I dimmed the lights in order to show a clip of an interview. The moment the lights went down I saw dozens and dozens of… Read More Dear Parents: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University But Don’t

Dilip

‘The era of invincibility is over’: the week big tech was brought to heel

Ruling that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products marks possible watershed moment for social media Dan Milmo and Robert Booth The young woman at the heart of what has been called the tech industry’s “big tobacco” moment was on YouTube at six and Instagram by nine. More than a decade later, she says, she still can’t live without… Read More ‘The era of invincibility is over’: the week big tech was brought to heel

Dilip

Epstein and the politics of distraction

Scandal individualises corruption, creating a spectacle that redirects anger away from structural power. By Yoav Litvin After the beginning of Trump’s second term, the connections between capitalism, white supremacy and imperial domination became increasingly clear. These have been highlighted through ICE raids as modern-day slave patrols, global criminal operations such as the kidnapping of Venezuelan… Read More Epstein and the politics of distraction

Dilip

‘It’s the most urgent public health issue’: Dr Rangan Chatterjee on screen time, mental health – and banning social media until 18

The hit podcaster, author and former GP says a failure to regulate big tech is ‘failing a generation of children’. He explains why he quit the NHS and why he wants a ban on screen-based homework Emine Saner A16-year-old boy and his mum went to see their GP, Dr Rangan Chatterjee, on a busy Monday… Read More ‘It’s the most urgent public health issue’: Dr Rangan Chatterjee on screen time, mental health – and banning social media until 18

Dilip