Our present dark age
The real age of obscurity and confusion is our own, and you will find no better proof of this than the works of Judith Butler. She is one of the most influential academics in the world, though very few people have read her work.
What's wrong with the West?
As long the West remains committed to perfection here on earth, we will never re-establish the stability and settled conditions that human flourishing requires. The main challenge before us now is not the realisation of a utopian dream, but finding peace and stability in a disordered world
What's the matter with Russia?
Far from a vision of a renewed West, Russia shows us how much worse the West shall be if we continue down the same road of forgetfulness, apathy, and nihilism.
As war rages, we're standing in the crumbling ruins of the academic Left
Are there any genuine Marxists remaining? Any old-school socialists? Anyone who thinks in traditional left-wing economic and class terms?
Cold War anxiety is back
Cold War anxiety is back. The world is growing increasingly dangerous and unstable. There will be little room for utopian visions and more for hard-headed realism. Western political goals will once again be measured, and politicians circumspect.
The price of forgetting our past
Forgetfulness of the past is more likely to produce conflict than remembering it is. Reimagining history as a Disney-like conflict between good and evil is more likely to lead you into error than facing up to it with all its unhappiness and failures.
Only Iranians can reform Iran
Iran already has its own liberal tradition and its own successful example of constraining despotism. The future of Iran after the Islamic Republic must be shaped by Iranians themselves within their own tradition of culture and civilisation.
Neoliberal extremism is the true tyranny of our age
No one thinks of a dominant ideology as extreme, but in the case of neoliberalism, this is exactly how we should see it. Neoliberalism is a doctrine of the total supremacy of economic and market forces, and very little has been able to stand in its way.
Conditions are ripe for a revolution from the Right
The elite class is set to inevitably shrink, and it will be hard going as this happens. The case for doom is more convincing now than at any other time in the last 50 years or so.