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It’s Not Cool to Hate the ‘Star Wars’ Prequels Anymore | Inverse
I am super happy to see this. A struggle for me over the last 20 years has been to get folks to see the Star Wars prequels as films in their own right that contribute visually and allegorically to mythography established… Continue reading
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How American Politics Became So Ineffective – The Atlantic
This article at the Atlantic is much, much more in-depth thoughtful piece than what I’ve covered with a few quick gestures over the last couple of weeks on FB and here at my blog. The more intrinsic hazard with middlemen… Continue reading
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The brave new world of robots and lost jobs
Automation is more of a threat to job security than trade deals or immigration. The political debate needs to engage the taboo topic of guaranteeing economic security to families — through a universal basic income, or a greatly expanded earned-income… Continue reading
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AirSpace: on the way to being everywhere and nowhere
In his 1992 book Non-Places, Marc Augé, the French anthropologist, wrote that with the emergence of such identity-less space, “people are always, and never, at home.” If we can be equally at home everywhere, as Roam and Airbnb suggest, doesn’t… Continue reading
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When critical thinking challenges reality
The biggest problem with those who begin coordinating rigged facts into weak–and very often invalid–arguments is that they have given up critique for criticism and argument for arguing. Continue reading
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Dyadic not dualistic
It’s difficult to break out of the Western habitude of dualism. But it is especially important to make the effort when thinking of the Chinese notion of Yin Yang. Rather than another form of dualism in the history of philosophy, it… Continue reading
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Overcoming Duopoly
We need communities of solidarity to elect leaders at all levels that can work toward a constitutional amendment to change how elections are run and districts are drawn. This will create the conditions for debilitating winner-take-all and for demonstrating the… Continue reading
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Lonely Nation, Touch Starved People
Americans exist in a sociocultural habitat where touching is discouraged. Yet we are primates, embodied beings evolved to live through, with, and in our senses. And tactility or touching as a sense makes us feel connected–to each other, to our… Continue reading
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Coordination, Subordination, and Exordination
Yesterday in our class, the discussion led me to talk for a little bit about a distinction originally made by Marcuse, I believe, regarding soft versus hard totalitarianism. I extended this description out to all manner of group structures that lead… Continue reading
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The Struggle between Monopoly and Cosmopolitanism
The Cynics were the first people to recognize that monopolitanism was a dangerous mindset which often leads to parochialism, moralism, xenophobia, narrow mindedness, etc. In its stead, they taught cosmopolitanism, or seeing yourself as belonging to the entirety of the… Continue reading
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Leaving Conservatism Behind | Dissent Magazine
For me, separating myself from what I now consider a naive move toward Reaganism happened in the late 1980’s when Iran-Contra allowed me to realize it was all just the same old song-and-dance. My anarcho-cynicism evolved over the course of… Continue reading
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The High Priests of Capitalism
Richard D. Wolff takes some time to describe how traditional intellectuals and economic theorists keep the superstructure mostly clear of those who disagree. Highly placed economic theorists usually evaluate the system prevailing in their societies very positively and construct celebratory… Continue reading
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becoming assimilated
I am not sure that any society which has had a long history of racism, misogyny, or homophobia–and now transphobia–is really one to which I should be running to assimilate. Continue reading
CALL ME MAGGIE 