First posted February 11, 2016 NB: The paragraphs on ‘national religion’ (highlighted in red) in the first-person account below, are particularly significant for the argument that fascism is a form of right-wing atheism – especially given the contemporary emergence of the Nation as a substitute for God: DS The Tripartite Pact linking Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and… Read More Brian Victoria: The Zen of Hitler Jugend
The discovery, made deep within the forest on the hillock known as Sitamma Loddi, has revealed several magnificent rock paintings on the wall of a massive sandstone west-facing rock shelter BY TELANGANA TODAY Hyderabad: A team from Kotha Telangana Charitra Brundham, led by photojournalist Duggempudi Ravinder Reddy and rock art expert Dr. Bandi Muralidhar Reddy, along with… Read More Mesolithic era art discovered in Telangana
First posted September 17, 2012 “War begins in the mind, with the idea of the enemy” NB: John Mack (1929 – 2004) was an immensely insightful psychiatrist, and this essay is an example of the contemporary relevance of his ideas and his research. A short biography may be read here. DS There is a substantial,… Read More John Mack: The Enemy System
Hegel’s World Revolutions; Richard Bourke An absolute will is bound to be an arbitrary one, since it would cease to be absolute if it respected laws and moral imperatives. The mere existence of something other than itself poses a mortal threat to it, and it ends up crushing everything that moves. Hegel sees the revolution… Read More Seeds of What Ought to Be: Hegel’s World Revolutions
Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography by Émile Perreau-Saussine Reviewed by Jonathan Rée Marx’s optimism proved to be ill-founded. The proletariat did not live up to expectations, leaving latter-day Marxists scrambling to find alternative superheroes. Hence, according to MacIntyre, the multitudes of ‘conflicting … political allegiances which now carry Marxist banners’, all expressing a well-founded hatred of capitalism but none offering… Read More Like a Top Hat
HARTOSH SINGH BAL This is an edited excerpt from a keynote address delivered at Stanford University, on October 10, 2023; while accepting the Shorenstein Journalism Award on behalf of The Caravan. I know that I speak against the backdrop of the horrors unfolding in Israel and Gaza. At such a time, there is little reason to stress the… Read More The Broken Compact
Since 2018, the US military has been ramping up its use of gaming to recruit more people, at a critical time when the US armed forces face the worst recruitment struggle since becoming an all-volunteer force after the Vietnam war. Targeting gamers makes sense from the military’s perspective, as it gives them access to the young, tech-savvy population they want joining up. But… Read More The US military is embedded in the gaming world. Its target: teen recruits
“He is one of very few scholars now alive who have, in effect, invented a field of study” Peter Brown: A Life of Learning – American Council of Learned Societies; Haskins Lecture, 2003 I remember the occasion when, in 1988, I had to perform the sad duty of writing the obituary of my friend and mentor,… Read More Peter Brown: A Life of Learning (2003)
Bahzad Al-Akhras I’m a doctor and psychiatrist, and before the war in Gaza, my days followed a reliable routine. I would go to work in the clinic, visit my friends and spend time with my family. I lived a normal life. Now, my family and I are refugees in Rafah, after the Israeli army ordered us… Read More In Rafah, we sit in flimsy tents as the bombs fall. There is no escape: we can only wait for the worst
First posted June 19, 2016 Reviewed by Edward Mendelson Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism – by Judy Wajcman Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age – by Bernard E. Harcourt Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art – by Virginia Heffernan Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media… Read More In the Depths of the Digital Age: Five books on psychological life in the internet age / We Are Hopelessly Hooked by Jacob Weisberg
After the truth-shower 