Tag Archives: Politics & Society

Med Thatcher som idol ”Har du någon egen förebild? – Ja … Sen är jag väldigt fascinerad av Margaret Thatcher. Hon hade verkligen råg i ryggen och visade var skåpet ska stå … När man har sett henne i debattstolen så mår man bra hela dagen! Hon har betytt mer för eftervärlden än någon annan brittisk ledare. Jag försöker ta efter henne … Annie Lööf “Fascinerad av Margaret Thatcher”? Undrar vad mer hon tänker på? Är det månne Thatchers ohöljda förmåga att...

Animal cruelty and human dignity  [embedded content] Throughout European history the idea of the human being has been expressed in contradistinction to the animal. The latter’s lack of reason is the proof of human dignity. So insistently and unanimously has this antithesis been recited … that few other ideas are so fundamental to Western anthropology. The antithesis is acknowledged even today. The behaviorists only appear to have forgotten it. That they...

Courage is a capability to confront fear, as when in front of the powerful and mighty, not to step back, but stand up for one’s rights not to be humiliated or abused. Courage is to do the right thing in spite of danger and fear. To keep on even if opportunities to turn back are given. Dignity, a better life, or justice and rule of law, are things worth fighting for. Not to step back, in spite of confronting the mighty and powerful, creates courageous acts that stay in our...

The speed of America’s moral descent under Donald Trump is breathtaking. In a matter of months we’ve gone from a nation that stood for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to a nation that tears children from their parents and puts them in cages. What’s almost equally remarkable about this plunge into barbarism is that it’s not a response to any actual problem. The mass influx of murderers and rapists that Trump talks about, the wave of crime committed by immigrants here...

Facts and opinions, though they must be kept apart, are not antagonistic to each other; they belong to the same realm. But do facts, independent of opinion and interpretation, exist at all? Have not generations of historians and philosophers of history demonstrated the impossibility of ascertaining facts without interpretation, since they must first be picked out of a chaos of sheer happenings (and the principles of choice are surely not factual data) and then be fitted into a...

Politische Korrektheit — Nein, danke! Ich bin, und zwar von ganzem Herzen, Schriftstellerin, Reisejournalistin, Literaturver-anstalterin und Weltreisende – und in allen diesen meinen Inkarnationen nagt die Political Correctness zunehmend an meinen Fundamenten. Nicht zuletzt an meinen Idealen: Aufklärung. Gleichberechtigung. Empathie und eine Mitmenschlichkeit, die blind ist für Kategorien wie Ethnie, Gender, Herkunft. War PC nicht einst, vor ihrer...

Two words say​ it all!  [embedded content] One cannot but grieve for a nation that has given us presidents like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and now is run by a witless clown. An absolute disgrace. Advertisements

Judith Butler — postmodern mumbo jumbo​ The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one...

 [embedded content] Vor 50 Jahren rebellierte die Jugend. Viele beriefen sich dabei auf Philosophen wie Theodor Adorno und Herbert Marcuse. Was haben uns diese Denker heute noch zu sagen? Ein Gespräch mit dem Historiker und Philosophen Philipp Felsch über die Meisterdenker von damals. Advertisements

Niall Ferguson and​ conservative gaslighting Last week The Stanford Daily reported a curious story concerning Niall Ferguson, a conservative historian who is a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. The story itself, although ugly, isn’t that important. But it offers a window into a reality few people, certainly in the news media, are willing to acknowledge: the bad faith that pervades conservative discourse … Ferguson is, as it happens, one of those...