It might be easy to conclude that 17th-century Europeans dismissed any natural limits to progress, or were oblivious to its impact on the environment. But the modern project of autonomy and abundance if anything made it easier to attribute ecological change to human agency. Far from rendering the environment invisible, the Enlightenment turned it into a subject of political and economic debate.
Reading
It is an infernal riddle of digital culture that ‘authenticity’ is constantly breeding its opposite: the ‘spontaneous’ event that proves to be no such thing, the ‘surprise’ that turns out to be staged, the emotional outburst that has been practised. Any culture that lavishes praise on ‘authenticity’ to the extent that ours does will be beset by worries regarding ‘fakery’.
Siblings is like a book from a lost civilisation. It comes with four pages of endnotes, which these days is unheard of in fiction. This bespeaks the arcaneness of the so-called Dreibuchstabenstaat, ‘three-letter state’, the DDR (or GDR); the utter pertinacity, specialisation and goneness of its circumstances.
Bad DreamsAs I ease the blade from my father’s chesthe looks surprised – as though opening the curtainsto snow. Remember the Emperor who beheadeda soldier for dreaming of the...
When I returned last year, the garbage was piled so high on the pavements that pedestrians had to compete with lunatic drivers for right of way. The private electricity generators were mostly quiet – few can afford the fuel needed to run them. The Ponzi scheme that the Lebanese central bank had been running for years caused the private banks to collapse in 2019.
George Sand found the tall, slim Musset, with his fashionably dishevelled blond hair, more agreeable than she had expected. He wrote poems for her and sent her sketches. There was no talk of love. On the contrary: when it comes to love, he wrote, there’s a whole Baltic Sea between us. This was written on 24 July. In one of the century’s finest volte-faces, the very next day he wrote: ‘My dear Georges, I have something stupid and ridiculous to tell you . . . I’m in love with you.’
The letters page from London Review of Books Vol. 45 No. 5 (Friday 17 February 2023)
All of us depend, in early age and often at the end of life, on the care of others. To think about care is to shuttle back and forth between social totality and the irreducible complexity of individual needs, from feeding or washing to dignity or meaningful attention. Because it concerns the state, care must be thought of in the aggregate – unit costs, labour time, population trends – but many carers worry that such categories miss everything significant about their work.
Table of contents from London Review of Books Vol. 45 No. 5 (Friday 17 February 2023)
Palestinians understand that Israel is a democracy for Jews and an apartheid regime for non-Jews. But just like the Green Line, this is a false separation, since the Jewish democratic system itself is dependent on ethnic exclusion and demographic engineering. The liberals condemning the rise of fascism in Israeli politics are fighting for the rights of only part of the population.
Ming Smith often compares herself to a blues or jazz musician. ‘If people could feel what I feel when I hear a Billie Holiday song,’ she says, ‘that’s what I would want them to feel when they look at my work.’ There’s sometimes a melancholy in her photographs of Black life, but it’s offset by the same ironical awareness that infuses the blues.
The idea that art should be made by and available to all has been a rallying cry for socialists for decades. Contrary to stereotype, the traditional demands of the labour movement haven’t just been about ensuring people have food on their plates and heat in their homes, but about enabling the beauty and creativity stifled by […]
In letters to the EPA and NTSB, the lawmakers expressed concern about the safety of East Palestine residents, given the release of hazardous materials, as well as efforts to prevent future derailments.
The post Ohio, Pennsylvania Senators Demand Federal Action Over Toxic Train Derailment appeared first on scheerpost.com.
Not surprisingly, Iran and Russia are increasing their cooperation.
A MintPress study of the 20 most influential U.S. news outlets found virtually no coverage of the esteemed journalist’s revelations linking Washington to the pipeline attacks.
The post Media Ignore Seymour Hersh Bombshell Report of US Destroying Nord Stream II appeared first on scheerpost.com.
JP Morgan plans to raise private capital for a Ukrainian investment fund.
The post Zelensky Signs Agreement With JP Morgan on Ukraine’s Reconstruction appeared first on scheerpost.com.
How a bleak Christian theology influenced the development of the dismal science.
The post We Need to Talk About the Original Sin of Economics appeared first on scheerpost.com.
- by Aeon Video
By Binoy Kampmark / CounterPunch Inside the beating heart of many students and a large number of learners lies an inner cheat. To get passing grades, every effort will be made to do the least to achieve the most. Efforts to subvert the central class examination are the stuff of legend: discreetly written notes on […]
The post ChatGPT: Boon for the Lazy Learner appeared first on scheerpost.com.
- by Michael Slepian
By DemocracyNow! When the Nord Stream pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged last September, U.S. officials were quick to suggest Russia had bombed its own pipelines. But according to a new report by the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, it was the U.S. Navy that carried out the sabotage, with help […]
The post DemocracyNow! Interview: Seymour Hersh on ‘How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline’ appeared first on scheerpost.com.
So far, Western sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports appear to be working. But in the longer term, Russia may find ways to evade the price cap imposed on its oil sales.