Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Critical theory upends the universal values of the Enlightenment: objectivity, rationality, science, equality and freedom of the individual. These liberal values are an ideology by which dominant groups subjugate other groups. All relations are power relations, everything is political, and claims of reason and truth are social constructs that
... See moreGeorge Packer • Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal
“Lippmann, who was emerging as America’s most influential liberal journalist, understood information and propaganda to be the fundamental democratic problem under conditions of a mass population and a mass press. The crisis of democracy, he wrote, was in its essence “a crisis in journalism.” The distance between what he called “the world outside
... See moreJustin E. H. Smith • My Generation, by Justin E. H. Smith
Gleason and Cook could see that Moses’ relationship with publishers and top editors was as close as ever. Not only had they been the recipients of his charm and his favors, they had been the key figures in making the Moses myth; they had a psychological vested interest in it. To dispatch investigators to dig into it would be an admission on their
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Power Broker
Electronic Intifada (the daily web news source propelled by Chicago-based Palestinian refugee Ali Abunimah)
Sarah Schulman • Conflict Is Not Abuse
Spectacle, he writes, is the expropriation of that possibility; it is the production of a one-way communication that he characterizes as “a generalized autism.”
Jonathan Crary • 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep
Said’s book became canonical in many Middle East Studies departments, pressuring students and professors to prove they were not Orientalists. Israel’s history was subjected to withering revisionism.