On the occasion of the death of Kim Jong-il I notice how the notion that he was popular and beloved by many in North Korea keeps popping up (together with some idea that this is the result of total control of the media and complete insulation from the outside world). The BBC has a series ...
I’ve always found the ease with which some who would count themselves towards the radical left take to Schmitt’s “critique of democracy” or Heidegger’s “critique of technology”. Johannes Thumfart highlights a very worrying example in die tageszeitung – English version at signandsight. Thumfart sums up the anonymous (and at least in France and Germany celebrated) ...
As this will sound like an all round defence of consumerism, I should start by saying that this is not my aim. So straightaway: consumer capitalism is a problem in terms of its ecological consequences and if those consequences can be mitigated by more social control over the production of consumer goods (aka socialism), I’m ...
Today I’ve woken up to the news that the UK branch of the Action for Happiness was launched. What a coincidence – I’ve just finished reading Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity, which is a great book – and also a great manifesto against engineering “happiness”. Mind you – I don’t have anything against the ...