“Common sense is not a single unique conception, identical in time and space. It is the ‘folklore’ of philosophy, and, like folklore, it takes countless different forms. Its most fundamental characteristic is that it is a conception which, even in the brain of one individual, is fragmentary, incoherent and inconsequential, in conformity with the social […]
“If someone had told me, “In five years you will have a baby,” I would have been fine to wait those five years; I would have been grateful to have them, in fact, and would have gotten busy with some of my other goals. But no one could tell me that – the problem with […]
“It is strange to see things for which Solidarity and Workers’ Liberty have long been despised and abused, among much of the left, the kitsch left, now being brandished as weapons against the Corbyn Labour Party by our political enemies. Certainly “left-wing” antisemitism, expressed as “anti-Zionism”, is a malignant and powerful force on the left. […] Those […]
French political scientist Gilles Kepel is a world-leading academic expert on political Islam (or Islamism). In his 2010 lecture at the London School of Economics he explains how from the midpoint of the 1970s political Islam became a prominent actor in the world system, and the consequences of this. My blog post summarises his analysis. […]
Accept my homage, Earth, as I make my last obeisance of the day,Bowed at the altar of the setting sun. You are mighty, and knowable only by the mighty;You counterpoise charm and severity;Compounded of male and femaleYou sway human life with unbearable conflict.The cup that your right hand fills with nectarIs smashed by your left;Your […]
Let’s begin with Marx and Engels from The Communist Manifesto (published in 1848): “Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones […]
Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) was an urban sociologist and French Marxist philosopher who theorised on the production of urban space, the right to the city, and the nature of everyday life. The below quote is from the Foreword of his book Critique of Everyday Life (Volume 1) in which he identifies the key feature of everyday life as […]
The following is a full recording of and written extracts from my book chapter, “On Identity Politics, Ressentiment, and the Evacuation of Human Emancipation”, in Nocella and Juergensmeyer (eds.) Fighting Academic Repression and Neoliberal Education (Peter Lang Publishing). My chapter and its podcast examine a neoliberal wave of identity politics in the form of intersectionality and privilege theory. […]
I’m reminded of the Daily Mash post, “Woman ends 20-year attempt to like jazz”, and feel relieved that my two decade journey ended differently. My lazy critique of jazz went along the lines of, ‘I like a beginning, middle and end’ and ‘when does the tune start?’ My bodily experience of jazz was irritation. Jazz […]
One feels insignificant amidst the natural landscape of Iceland and strangely that’s a comforting feeling: an awe and reassurance that there is something bigger than us. And yet, at the same time, one is reminded of the betrayal of our custodianship of planet Earth.
Anaemic On A Bike 