The text at the bottom of Marx and Engels monument in Alexander Platz in Berlin reads “Wir sind unschuldig”, i.e. “We are not guilty”. Guilty of what? In the preface to “A People’s Tragedy”, Orlando Figes writes very perceptive words:… Read More ›
Society
Mass reproduction & reproduction of the masses
In “Illuminations“, pg. 251, Walter Benjamin makes the following remark: “Mass reproduction is aided especially by the reproduction of the masses.” In order to comment on that, let us start from a film. The Bildungsroman of StaSi agent Wiesler in “The Life of… Read More ›
Deflation of human agency
One of the premier Art Deco buildings in London, the famed Senate House (above) keeps resonating in my mind every time I wander inside it. Especially overnight. Vastly different in concept but equally capable of impressing with its geometry, the… Read More ›
Ascesa & Declino: “All that is solid melts into air”
In his marvelous study of modernism “All that is solid melts into air“, Marshall Berman claims there is an idea which the human civilization owes to the Germans: the idea that economic development and human expansion are one and the same… Read More ›
Dialectic of the Enlightenment?
Syncretism is the true currency of our time. Living in London, this is more than an erudite remark, is an everyday experience, as this photo taken in a massive technology store in central London shows. The old complain by Carl Sagan that… Read More ›
Uberize the economy and the social fabric
The Emerging Platform Economy is the new way to do business. Legacy business models are asymptotically doomed. But: What shape will the elimination of the information brokering layer assume? The p2p ubiquity – p2p credit, Hayek Money, p2p economy with… Read More ›
Chomsky & Hobsbawm or: Homage to Catalonia
Let’s start again with late Tony Judt’s comment about Eric Hobsbawm autobiography, where one can read the following: Eric Hobsbawm is decidedly a man of order, a “Tory communist,” as he puts it. Communist intellectuals were never “cultural dissidents”; and… Read More ›
On mandarins and epistemological fallacies
Reading late Tony Judt’s appraisal of Eric Hobsbawm autobiography, one meets a very interesting remark: Eric Hobsbawm is decidedly a man of order, a “Tory communist,” as he puts it. Communist intellectuals were never “cultural dissidents”; and Hobsbawm’s scorn for… Read More ›
“To enquire and to create”
There used to be an old concept in classical philosophy, the concept of the full and meaningful life, creative and inquisitive. German classical philosophy recovered that from the ancient Greek civilization, in particular from Ⅴ century Athens. Unfortunately, that was… Read More ›
“The Look of Silence” and Antonio Gramsci
Watching the stunning documentary “The Look of Silence” by Joshua Oppenheimer is a moving experience. Of almost enlightening nature. The titles at the end, full of “Anonymous” references, are a powerful reminder that the grim events of Indonesian genocide of… Read More ›
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