Forgetting to Fall Has Become Harder: On Writing in Pandemia World
“There is an art, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss” begins a memorable passage...
Category: current affairs
Twitter Thread and Blog Post on the Folly of Comparing the American Left to Nazis
In August, I posted a long thread on Twitter regarding the problem of bad-faith distortions of history. It was set off by an especially egregious statement by D...
Podcast Appearance – #KönigVonDeutschland
Lutz Becker and Gunnar Sohn of #KönigVonDeutschland, a podcast about the many sides of, and issues related to the concept of utopia, recently spoke with me. The...
Decide: The French Election and the Untenable Position of Abstention
Slavoj Žižek bemoans in The Independent that the upcoming French run-off election means no choice at all because between Le Pen and Macron, the French people fa...
The Center Must Hold for a Peaceful Europe
It is not an exaggeration to say that with the upcoming French presidential election, the future of Europe hangs in the balance. To wit, Europe, not simply, not...
Donald Trump Is No Lyndon Johnson
John Fund at the National Review recently compared Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump. Citing also this blog, he argued that there were similarities between the two...
Against Fear
What is terror, and who is a terrorist? The question comes up a lot these days. In Germany, the Berlin Christmas market attack was labeled a terrorist act prett...
On Patriotism: How to Practice a Constitution
Playwright Tony Kushner wrote of “beautiful systems dying, old fixed orders spiraling apart” in the 1990s, referencing the changes palpable at the e...
Note to Self: Do Not Normalize the Trump Presidency
You’ve already heard and read much about what the stunning result of Tuesday’s U.S. election means. Opinions are about a-plenty, so I won’t ma...
After Trump, What Now? Tell True Stories Well
True stories save lives and change the world. Historians, cultural anthropologists and other students of the culture, ideas and inner workings of societies past...