First posted March 2013 But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence… illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the… Read More Hans Magnus Enzensberger: The Industrialization of the Mind
We have previously written about the debates over the political relevance of the Enlightenment today, drawing on Antoine Lilti’s critical review of the histories of Jonathan Israel. We present the English translation of his essay, which has import far beyond any disciplinary boundaries: Viewpoint Magazine David A. Bell: The Uses and Abuses of Enlightenment: AV lecture; January 2025 ***… Read More How Do We Write the Intellectual History of the Enlightenment? Spinozism, Radicalism, and Philosophy
Hindu College was set up in Calcutta in 1817 as a pioneering institution to impart Western learning to its students. In 1831, its most outstanding teacher, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, then only 22 years old, was compelled to resign. A look at the circumstances that forced his resignation attempts to reconstruct Derozio’s ideas and his… Read More The Derozio Affair – An Annal of Early Calcutta. By Rudrangshu Mukherjee
George Monbiot – Ayn Rand: A Manifesto for Psychopaths Her psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like victims and turned millions of followers into their doormats. I wonder how many would continue to worship at the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of her life she signed on for both Medicare… Read More George Monbiot – Ayn Rand: A Manifesto for Psychopaths / Paul Krugman explains why Ayn Rand’s libertarianism is absolutely deadly
Experts establish four themes to the misinformation contained in videos with a #mentalhealthtips hashtag More than half of top 100 mental health TikToks contain misinformation, study finds Rachel Hall Thousands of influencers peddle mental health misinformation on social media platforms – some out of a naive belief that their personal experience will help people, others… Read More Most common mental health misinformation on TikTok
The problem of evil will be the fundamental problem of postwar intellectual life in Europe – as death became the fundamental problem after the last war: Hannah Arendt, Nightmare and Flight, (1945) Essays in Understanding ***** Gabor Maté, Chris Hedges & Aaron Maté on ‘Palestine: The Moral Issue of Our Time’ Chris Hedges and Gabor Maté, introduced… Read More Gabor Maté, Chris Hedges & Aaron Maté on Palestine: The Moral Issue of Our Time
NB: Dr Mobarak Haider is a historian, writer and public intellectual. Here he writes about a very public tragedy. His capacity to speak unpleasant truths about his own society is to be appreciated. DS First posted February 05, 2013 War is a tragedy but a society at war with itself and everything around, with no objective… Read More Mobarak Haider: A society at war with itself
In the end, traditional liberal values are what Lindsay and Pluckrose are plumping for…. They conclude with a set of proposals for rethinking concepts such as ‘justice’ and ‘equity’, along lines allegedly more harmonious with reason, proof, logic, evidence, individuality, and choice, and less encumbered by group-think and by obscurantist, inflammatory collectivist rhetoric. Less propaganda,… Read More Cynical Theories
A wise and wonderfully enjoyable book on the enduring power of stupidity. “Paul made possible the transformation of the Gospels’ beautiful moral ideal into an anti-intellectual ideology that was enshrined permanently in the Christian scriptures and has since passed into our secular societies. That ideology has attracted a certain sort of mind ever since –… Read More Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know
By Maria Popova In 1957, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) became the second youngest laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded to him for work that “with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.” (It was with this earnestness that, days after receiving the coveted accolade, he sent his… Read More Albert Camus on Strength of Character and How to Save Our Sanity in Difficult Times
After the truth-shower 