Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
We learned to say that there was “no alternative” to the basic order of things, a sensibility that the Lithuanian political theorist Leonidas Donskis called “liquid evil.” Once inevitability was taken for granted, criticism indeed became slippery. What appeared to be critical analysis often assumed that the status quo could not actually change, and
... See moreTimothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
What does the rise of Donald Trump signify? What can we do about the epidemic of fake news? Why is liberal democracy in crisis? Is God back? Is a new world war coming?
Yuval Noah Harari • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Globalization
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
This is America, we would say to ourselves, there is no need to worry. And we would be wrong.
Julie Otsuka • The Buddha in the Attic
By the early 1990s, thinkers and politicians alike hailed “the End of History,” confidently asserting that all the big political and economic questions of the past had been settled and that the refurbished liberal package of democracy, human rights, free markets, and government welfare services remained the only game in town. This package seemed
... See moreYuval Noah Harari • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
We live in an era of wealth and overabundance, but how bleak it is. There is “neither art nor philosophy,” Fukuyama says. All that’s left is the “perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history.”
Rutger Bregman • Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World
history’s choices are not made for the benefit of humans.