Our Times
Books matter. Making them is a combination of craft and insight. Publishing them is a generous act of faith. Adding to the corpus of shared knowledge is important. Books change the culture when people act on them, even if they don’t sell many copies. And sometimes the backlist surprises the accountants.
But the economics of new books have nothing to... See more
But the economics of new books have nothing to... See more
Books don’t sell
the self is no longer a subject but a project . The self is something to be optimised, to be maximised, to be made efficient, cultivated for its capacity for productive output. The worry is that all life activities become viewed as lines on a résumé. Knowingly or otherwise, we risk being constantly governed by the question How is what I’m doing
... See moreAlec Stubbs • The Achievement Society Is Burning Us Out, We Need More Play
I’m afraid many now have no capacity to even understand the concept of there being a simulacrum. The digiverse is effectually flattened out into what people see as reality. There are now so many ways we interact through screens and with pixels that the difference no longer seems to matter. Think, people really are willing to hand things over to... See more
Nicholas Smithsubstack.comSehr viel. Toxische Männlichkeit ist ja nicht nur für Frauen und Kinder zerstörerisch, sondern sie schadet auch den Männern. Sie führt unter anderem zu einem Gefühlsverbot: Männer dürfen nicht ängstlich, traurig, schamhaft sein, das ganze mittlerweile bekannte Programm. Diese Gefühle schon in der Kindheit abzuwehren, macht Männer krank. Das ist
... See moreSimone Schmollack • Psychologe Über Gender Und Krieg: „Männer Sind Verunsichert“
Of course, things have not quite worked out this way. As the late nineteenth-century French sociologist Émile Durkheim perceived, the flipside of free-floating autonomy is anomie — a society without any authoritative norms. Pried from closed communities, many people suffer from pathologies of isolation and purposelessness. Family breakdown, drug
... See morenoemamag.com • Surveillance Capitalism vs. The Surveillance State - NOEMA
And I increasingly think our job, maybe our method of rebellion, is to be people who care, who have taste, who like and share and look for good things, who read and watch and look at those things on purpose instead of just staring slackjawed at whatever slop is placed between the ads they hope we won’t really notice.
A new movie taking on the tech bros
Millions of people — and white people in particular — would rather endure physical isolation, generalized loneliness, caregiving exhaustion, and financial precarity than relinquish some of their societal power. That’s a far less optimistic foundational myth than individualism. But it’s a far more honest one.
The Dark Heart of Individualism
Der russische Philosoph Michail Bachtin (1895–1975) war der Ansicht, Menschen zu täuschen heißt, sie zu Objekten zu machen. Aber warum sollte ein Objekt glauben, das sei schlimm?