The old is dying and the new cannot yet be born. This is the time of monsters. Antonio Gramsci (paraphrase) To defeat darkness, embrace it. Edmund Wilson ‘You’re just desperate.’ ‘I’m terrified.’ Dialogue from Neon Genesis Evangelion Pain is an inevitable consequence of truth. You have to learn to withstand it. In the end, humans … Continue reading Evangelion ends: Aristotle, Arendt, and angels
Tag: Recognition
How capitalism ends
First published on 14 September 2020. There are several dimensions to the supposed demise of capitalism. There are two developments and two critical contradictions behind the system’s present afflictions. Capitalism may end, however, in two different ways—one of which less an end to capitalism than a return to a different form of capitalism. Lastly, if … Continue reading How capitalism ends
What power is
Power, for the sociologist Max Weber, is the capacity of agent A to achieve their will despite the resistance of agent B, regardless of the basis on which this ability rests. But there are two problems with this view of power, which might suggest what an alternative theory of power might look like. In this … Continue reading What power is
What it means to be human
What does it mean to be human? There are few questions more basic but also more difficult to answer. So, let me start as all answers to hard questions must. With a story. Meet Australopithecus africanus. An early human (Creative Commons). Yesterday, I sat as countless numbers of students before me have sat. In an … Continue reading What it means to be human
Edmund Wilson 