Today’s frantic world of social media contrasts with the equally frenetic world of twenty-four hour news, which is seen as relentlessly negative. Social media is, by contrast, full of positivity, with everyone broadcasting how wonderful their life is. But what both share is a certain emptiness — what philosopher Hannah Arendt termed ‘banality’. Staying on … Continue reading The tyranny of positivity
Tag: History
our tragedy
if you are well and I am well shadows and skies how can that be a tragedy? if just we cannot be
Will China Replace America? Observations from 2017
The following text was given at a talk in 2017, initially published on my legacy blog, Principia Politica, before the commencement of Trump’s trade war with China which continues to this day under the Biden administration. In 1823, US President James Monroe asserted that North and South America ‘are henceforth not to be considered as … Continue reading Will China Replace America? Observations from 2017
Why Lisa from Blackpink is the next queen of hip hop, but it may take a while for her to break free
K-Pop is paradoxically encaged by its global popularity. Breaking through to the American audience at the beating heart of global capitalism is key to success in modern music. For with commercial success can come the freedom to make truly artistic music. This happened most recently with hip hop, which transformed through its late ‘90s and … Continue reading Why Lisa from Blackpink is the next queen of hip hop, but it may take a while for her to break free
Churchill, the Devil, and Hitler: An analogy for our own time
‘If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil.’ — Winston Churchill, in a speech to the House of Commons. ‘Churchill allied with Stalin,’ notes the Churchill Project in a timely piece. I myself have been confronted with controversy in my call for renewing a strategic alliance with Russia … Continue reading Churchill, the Devil, and Hitler: An analogy for our own time
Plato, Rousseau, and the politics of philosophy
A recent book by Cambridge intellectual historian Christopher Brooke traces Philosophic Pride not to its usual imagined source, a utopian faith in abstractions, but to Stoicism, which places faith in the concrete world around us. Philosophers’ inflated sense of self comes out of, well, the self, as physically instantiated in our biological constitution. Eventually, Stoicism … Continue reading Plato, Rousseau, and the politics of philosophy
Will history end? Musings on the war of ideas
A legacy piece from 2017. “History” is an ambiguous word, albeit a common one. But defining history’s limits is worthwhile, as we all partake in history’s course every time we speak to a friend, write a letter or send a meme on Facebook. For philosophers Hegel, Kant and Marx, history was the history of ideas. … Continue reading Will history end? Musings on the war of ideas
The diamond theory of everything (old version)
What matters? What matters historically? What matters morally? These questions plague any politically- or philosophically-minded person. In his magnum opus, On What Matters, philosopher Derek Parfit considered the last question: what matters morally? Parfit's answer relates to what I'm going to consider in this post, but it's not too central. For Parfit, moral statements are … Continue reading The diamond theory of everything (old version)
Edmund Wilson 