society of control
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Ideas vs. Beliefs: Transform Your Mindset
Our Purpose Is Not Understanding There is a line I keep circling back to in my own thinkering: our purpose as organic entities is not understanding. Understanding is an instrument. It helps us discover, organize, and sometimes even improve our… Continue reading
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Graeber and Jaspers: Looking at University Structures
READ MY NOTICE TO EXPRESS MYSELFAS A FREE ADULT CITIZEN OF THE STATE OF TEXAS If you’ve read my recent dive into Jaspers’ Idea of the University through the lens of platform capitalism and AI, you know I’ve been wrestling… Continue reading
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On Cages, Currents, and Loss
Mountain Dog reflections on the concept that not every limitation is a prison, emphasizing the importance of recognizing transient constraints rather than allowing them to define our perception of reality. They advocate for resilience through honest acknowledgment of loss while… Continue reading
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Connected to the Neoliberal University
The author reflects on the pressures faced as a new PhD navigating academic and administrative roles in a Texas public university. They discuss the tension between scholarly independence and the algorithms dictating educational practices. Emphasizing the need to resist platform… Continue reading
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A Fourfold for the Current Empire
I explore the concept of “transistance,” a practice of navigating life’s complexities without adhering to rigid frameworks. It emphasizes the importance of embracing ambiguity and interdependence, while rejecting traditional revolutionary approaches. I propose it is a first step of a… Continue reading
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Whispering New Directions
The text explores the concept of the practical spirit, emphasizing three modes: contemplative, scientific, and operative. It critiques the dominance of operationalism in modern society, linking it to systemic dehumanization. I advocatesfor “transistance” to navigate beyond established orientations and connect… Continue reading
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The Limits of Jaspersian Patience
Philosophical faith and dialogue might seem hopelessly inadequate. “Playing the long game” can also feel inadequate when people are being threatened, disappeared, or killed. Here I attempt to outline why Jaspers was no fool about this. Continue reading
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Anti-Reason in Our Times: The Renaissance of White Supremacy
Karl Jaspers warns in “Reason and Anti-Reason in Our Time” (1952) of the unphilosophical spirit that favors comforting myths over uncomfortable truths. Contemporary white supremacist movements exemplify this “anti-reason,” exhibiting ideological rigidity and rejecting dialogue. Through the Browning’s work, “The… Continue reading
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Seeing Through the Force
I. Introduction: The Aesthetic Judgment Within* “The soul is not a unity. It is a field of tensions — of seeing, feeling, and wanting. The work of judgment is not to conquer these parts, but to bring them into resonance.”—… Continue reading
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Heresy in the Guise of Tradition: A Queer Prodigal Son Reflects on MAGA Traditionalism
Pope Leo XIV’s election signifies a pivotal moment in the Church, yet reactionary American Catholics criticize him as insufficiently traditional. They embody a heresy that distorts Gospel values, prioritizing power over compassion. This discourse urges a return to true Catholic… Continue reading
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Philosophical Faith in the World: Neither Sinner nor Consumer
Karl Jaspers small text provides us in 2025 with a manual of quiet defiance. For queer and other marginalized thinkers, educators, counselors, and all who remain exposed in the neoliberal storm winds, Jaspers offers us Way to reassert the soft power… Continue reading
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Neoliberalism: The Operating System of the Society of Control
Neoliberalism, emerging as a reaction against Keynesian policies, transforms social life through market logic, individual responsibility, and state facilitation of capital. It prioritizes deregulation, privatization, and austerity, reframing citizens as entrepreneurial actors. In Texas, neoliberal policies since the 1990s have… Continue reading
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The Current Empire
Unlike classical empires, the Current Empire no longer needs grand narratives of conquest. Instead, it extends its reach through bureaucratic normalization, algorithmic feedback loops, religious-nationalist fervor, and the hollowing of democratic discourse. Continue reading
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Reversion, Reconciliation, and Restoration: Toward Tranquility in the Current Empire
Looking Back Almost twenty years ago, I began troubling the word peace. Like many of us, I had long imagined peace as the cessation of violence, the arrival of stillness, the mutual exhale after the fire. But something in the… Continue reading
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From Republic to Serfdom: Misreading Rome in America’s Rural Imagination
Introduction The recent interview with Ammon Bundy in The Salt Lake Tribune highlights a recurring theme among certain rural conservatives: the belief that the expansion of government welfare signals the decline of a once-great republic. Bundy’s assertion that the U.S.… Continue reading
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Siren Song Society: Profound Boredom – Authentic Leisure – Existential Liberation
offer these connections to encourage people to be okay with boredom–to not see every break in labor or in study or in whatever as requiring us to find something to amuse ourselves into utter alienated distraction. Continue reading
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Unionized Auto Workers Are Taking on a Three-Headed Behemoth of Big Capital | Truthout
…there’s another sense in which the UAW’s fight is everyone else’s fight. In taking on the Big Three automakers, auto workers are quite literally confronting a three-headed behemoth whose leadership and governance are closely embedded and directly interlocked within a… Continue reading
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