Sublime

Quite a strange man, thought James, watching him go – but what a relief to discover he still contained the capacity to be taken by surprise.

Jim is what I call a rugged individualist. His brand of individualism comes straight out of the philosophy of the Enlightenment era, the writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the same philosophical roots as the American Revolution and soon after that the French Revolution. Gone forever was the doctrine of the divine right of kings. It got repla

He conducts an ongoing interrogation about what it all means. What’s black culture? What’s hip-hop? What are the responsibilities of a society and the people in it? And his inquiry isn’t bloodlessly academic, either; there’s something very consequential about his approach.

‘Protestor’ just doesn’t have the same responsive resonance as ‘dissident’, or even ‘activist’, lacking the sense of social justice