Collin G Brooke

it does involve a kind of close reading, a careful attention to the forms that organize texts, bodies, and institutions.

Liberalism in the sense I am using it refers to the rule of law, a system of formal rules that restrict the powers of the executive, even if that executive is democratically legitimated through an election.

I think we are trained, particularly on the left, to be critical of performance. And I feel we should be more honest in acknowledging that performance is crucial to politics. It doesn't mean it's the only factor––that policy or other factors don't matter. But it is a defining feature.

the imaginary waxes while the symbolic wanes.

Supposedly mature adults with no sense of scale or proportionality.”

In this context, conspiracy theories, as micro-narratives, are a remedy. They are taken up as resources that provide identity and meaning.

The platforms’ business model is dependent on the volume and velocity of the inflammatory content being offered. It is not a side issue. It is the driving metric. The more engaging the content, the more eyeballs. The more eyeballs, the more advertising revenue.

The story of Section 230 in the United States—and around the world, as other countries followed America’s lead in giving free rein to these American companies—is stunningly simple. Technology platforms had been given the freedom to sell the first consumer product ever that was absolutely immune from age-old common-law or modern regulatory

rhetoric is a metalanguage that describes and explains how language works.