Postliberals Don’t Understand What’s Wrong With America
Frustrated with the state of America, some on the Right have come to embrace postliberalism, an ideology that seeks to invigorate conservative politics by rejecting equality.
Search Result(s) for: “Nietzsche”
Thomas Mann and the Temptations of Fascism
The resurgence of right-wing populism has set the table for the far right’s renewed fortunes. Published in 1947, Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus offers a guide to the mythmaking and rejection of reason that continues to animate authoritarian politics today.
The Clash of Civilizations, 30 Years Later
At a time of neoliberal triumphalism and the so-called end of history, Samuel Huntington predicted ongoing conflict.
How Giorgia Meloni Made the Far Right Mainstream
Recently genealogists discovered that Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is a distant relative of Antonio Gramsci. Though they share little else, Meloni has engaged in a campaign for control over cultural institutions that Gramsci would understand well.
DNA: A Parasite that Builds Its Own Host?
Dawkins, the mechanistic world, and the "war on the beautiful"
Abandon the Future
If there’s a lesson from Back to the Future Day, it’s that the future can’t save us.
The Young Benjamin
Walter Benjamin's Marxism owed much to his early engagement with anarchism and surrealism.
The Fool and the Madman
Last night, Jordan Peterson spouted nonsense about Marxism. And Slavoj Žižek reminded us of how deep into liberal pessimism he's fallen.
“Responsible Conservatives” Won’t Save Us From Fascism
History shows that when working-class strength threatens the status quo, even moderate conservatives won’t balk at making common cause with fascists.
There’s No Moral Justification for Capitalist-Owned Enterprises
Capitalist "liberty" is just another word for private tyranny. Workers, not capitalists, should control economic enterprises.
Jacques Derrida’s Defense of Marx and the Birth of Hauntology
French philosopher Jacques Derrida is best known as one of the champions of postmodernism. But in the early 1990s, at the height of capitalist triumphalism, Derrida took up the cudgels in defense of Karl Marx — and inadvertently spawned a whole musical genre.
Edward Said Showed Intellectuals How to Bring Politics to Their Work
The Palestinian writer Edward Said wasn’t merely an intellectual who took brave political stands. Said’s whole approach to his work should be a model for politically engaged scholarship that doesn’t get bogged down in the thickets of academic culture.
Ludwig von Mises Was a Free-Market Ideologue, Not a Hardheaded Thinker
Ludwig von Mises, the influential right-wing economist, thought of himself as a sober, scientific critic of socialism. In reality, he was a free-market ideologue, using dressed-up dogma to prove why workers should bow before their capitalist masters.
Herbert Read: The Art of Everyday Life
Critic and philosopher Herbert Read was a contradictory figure — an anarchist and a knight, a lover of medieval art and industrial design — but at the center of his work was the belief that we can all be artists.
Alain Badiou Is the World’s Leading Philosopher of Communism
While many radicals of the 1968 generation shifted to the right, French philosopher Alain Badiou maintained fidelity to the revolutionary communist project.
Martin Heidegger’s Nazism Is Inextricable From His Philosophy
Despite the mass of evidence proving Martin Heidegger’s Nazi commitment, academics often dismiss concerns about his politics as nonphilosophical. Two new books make a compelling case for rejecting this line of argument.
The Right Says to Hell With Equality
The political right is a diverse intellectual tradition and world-making project. But there’s one thing that unites every variant of right-wing ideology: the belief that society will improve if we give up on the dream of a world where people are equal.
In Defense of Grand Narratives
Restoring big ideas.