Essays
The young would-be feminists flocking to “WitchTok” for advice on how to conjure love and manifest success are hardly atheists. Neither are the young men of the right who, if not crowding back into traditionalist churches, grope for a spirituality of strength, vitality, and meaning among the aesthetic ruins of ancient warrior cults. These are peopl... See more
N. S. Lyons • Dark Enchantment | N. S. Lyons
The redemption arc, in clumsy hands, becomes cheesy and unbelievable, offending good taste more often than not. Granted. But literature has, in the past, found ways to handle this sort of plot delicately, and to great effect. After all, the question of how a person changes ought to absolutely possess a novelist – as a matter of philosophical inquir... See more
The Lost Redemption Arc
Poetry is an essential part of society—but only as itself and not as a vehicle for something else.
Micah Mattix • The Integrity of Poetry | Micah Mattix
Apropos of nothing.
Apropos of nothing.
"Silence is the artist's ultimate other-worldly gesture; by silence, he frees himself from servile bondage to the world, which appears as patron, client, consumer, antagonist, arbiter, and distorter of his work." The Aesthetic of Silence, Susan Sontag.
The dream of a Liberal (arts) education—which is the scaled, democratic form of the Keatsian ideal of negative capability—cannot hold up when liberalism itself is held to be suspect.
Zohar Atkins • The Liberal Arts Are Dying Because Liberalism is Dying
The Keatsian endeavor has never been popular, but is particularly unfashionable today. Religious fundamentalists reject it on the grounds that revelation and commitment are needed to orient oneself in the world. The amorality of a poet who is a “thoroughfare for all thoughts” risks heresy or destabilization. Tell me where you stand, where your loya... See more
Zohar Atkins • The Liberal Arts Are Dying Because Liberalism is Dying
Open-mindedness is a world-saving virtue.
Zohar Atkins • The Liberal Arts Are Dying Because Liberalism is Dying
Streaming sites have thus transformed into enterprises whose business is not limited to the sale of music-related services, but relies increasingly upon the collection, aggregation, and exchange of user data. A key issue this article pursues concerns the changing status of music within the commercial strategies of online streaming. While previous r... See more
Eric Drott • Music as a Technology of Surveillance
Luxury surveillance is a phenomenon where "some people pay to subject themselves to surveillance that others are forced to endure and would, if anything, pay to be free of." You might buy a GPS bracelet to track your biometric data (which will be used by other firms), while others might be forced to wear one (and still pay for it) as part of their ... See more