A central plank of libertarian (and neoliberal and conservative) opposition to organized labor, to collective bargaining, to workers acting collectively is something I term the ‘hire-and-fire fantasy’: that employers should be able to initiate and terminate their employees’ employment at will. (This power would presumably be written into the contracts they sign with their workers.)Continue reading “The ‘Hire-And-Fire’ Fantasy Of The Libertarian”
Category Archives: Philosophy
Conversations (Brief Ones) With Richard Spencer, Neo-Nazi
A few years ago, while working out at my gym in Brooklyn, I was paired with a young man named Richard Spencer for a ‘partner workout’ (I learned his first name during our pre-class introductions; the rest followed once we began our workout.) We took turns performing the assigned exercises at intervals, encouraging the otherContinue reading “Conversations (Brief Ones) With Richard Spencer, Neo-Nazi”
Demonizing Organized Labor And The Road To Fascism
The word ‘union’ occurs five times in Jedediah Purdy‘s Jacobin essay ‘How Trump Won.’ On the first two occasions, Purdy invokes unions as part of an analysis of the demographics of Trump voters: [U]nion voters abandoned the Democrats dramatically Clinton was much weaker than Obama with union-household voters: he won them 58–40, she only 51–43.Continue reading “Demonizing Organized Labor And The Road To Fascism”
Falstaff As Zarathustra
There is much that is admirable in Falstaff. He is funny; he has a flair for verbal pyrotechnics; he is lustful; he enjoys food and drink, he is a good friend; he might commit highway robbery, but it is not clear he would want to hurt anyone in the process. Moreover, one suspects he wouldContinue reading “Falstaff As Zarathustra”
Nietzsche’s ‘Supreme Principle of Education’
Nietzsche claims that the “supreme principle of education” is that “one should only offer food to him who hungers for it.” That is, roughly, teaching should be guided not by the requirements of an abstract, generalized curriculum, but by the expressed needs of the learner. In keeping with Nietzsche’s generalized aristocratic and hierarchical sensibilities, educationContinue reading “Nietzsche’s ‘Supreme Principle of Education’”
Nietzsche’s Six Methods For Combating Facebook Distraction
Nietzsche has something to say about everything. Including Facebook Distraction, an ‘impulse’ whose ‘vehemence’ we seek to combat, and for which he has found ‘not more than six essentially different methods.’ (‘The Dawn of Day‘, trans. JM Kennedy, Allen Unwin, 1924, Section 109)
The 2016 Elections, The ‘Bernie Revolution,’ And A Familiar Pattern
In The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848 Eric Hobsbawm writes: In brief, the main shape of…all subsequent bourgeois revolutionary politics were by now clearly visible. This dramatic dialectical dance was to dominate the future generations. Time and again we shall see moderate middle class reformers mobilizing the masses against die-hard resistance or counter-revolution. We shall see the masses pushingContinue reading “The 2016 Elections, The ‘Bernie Revolution,’ And A Familiar Pattern”
Black Mirror’s Third Season Nosedives In The First Episode
Black Mirror used to be the real deal: a television show that brought us clever, scary satire about the brave new dystopic, over-technologized world that we are already living in. It was creepy; it was brutal in its exposure of human frailty in the face of technology’s encroachment on our sense of self and ourContinue reading “Black Mirror’s Third Season Nosedives In The First Episode”
Jon Meacham On Misunderstanding Darwin And The George Bush ‘Legacy’
During the 1988 election season’s presidential debates, George H. W. Bush described his opponent, Michael Dukakis, as ‘a card-carrying member of the ACLU.’ This was supposed to be a zinger, a devastating put-down line that would show up his opponent as a radical, a wanna-be hippie, an out-of-touch member of the East Coast elite, anContinue reading “Jon Meacham On Misunderstanding Darwin And The George Bush ‘Legacy’”
Nikolai Berdayev On Philosophy’s Therapeutic Function
In Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography (Macmillan, 1950) Nikolai Berdayev writes: It has been said that ‘green is the tree of life and grey the theory of life.’ Paradoxical though it may seem, I am inclined to think that the reverse is true: ‘grey is the tree of life and green the theory thereof.’…What isContinue reading “Nikolai Berdayev On Philosophy’s Therapeutic Function”
Samir Chopra 