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Politics

Mouth! King Mouth! Understanding Foreign Affairs in the Age of Trump via “War Music”

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The last year and a half, since Trump’s poorly attended inauguration, has been anything but quiet; the apocryphal “may you live in interesting times” applies. It’s been hard to keep up! A lot has happened, especially on Twitter! How is one to make sense of the lunacy? Perhaps the Iliad can help.

Mouth! King Mouth! Understanding Foreign Affairs in the Age of Trump via “War Music” Read More »

The last year and a half, since Trump’s poorly attended inauguration, has been anything but quiet; the apocryphal “may you live in interesting times” applies. It’s been hard to keep up! A lot has happened, especially on Twitter! How is one to make sense of the lunacy? Perhaps the Iliad can help.

Safe: A Meditation on Charlottesville and Beyond

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The public nature of the hate is critical to its Americanizing function. Shouting hate slogans, hateful slurs, is our form of communist denunciation and coerced betrayals of loved ones — only, instead of marking Party membership, by offering up traitors to a cause, capitalists, enemies of state — we signal we are part of the majority by verbalizing hate, demonization, exclusion.

Safe: A Meditation on Charlottesville and Beyond Read More »

The public nature of the hate is critical to its Americanizing function. Shouting hate slogans, hateful slurs, is our form of communist denunciation and coerced betrayals of loved ones — only, instead of marking Party membership, by offering up traitors to a cause, capitalists, enemies of state — we signal we are part of the majority by verbalizing hate, demonization, exclusion.

Stories We Tell Of Ourselves: The Enneagram, Eliot, Emerson, and Trump

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This idea of narratives is key: in a sense, the Enneagram is just an organized and abstracted system of characters that already exist, in specific forms, in literature. And just like literature, it can give us ways to understand and mobilize our own stories and transformations; indeed, we can think of literature as a place where philosophies of personality are put into play.

Stories We Tell Of Ourselves: The Enneagram, Eliot, Emerson, and Trump Read More »

This idea of narratives is key: in a sense, the Enneagram is just an organized and abstracted system of characters that already exist, in specific forms, in literature. And just like literature, it can give us ways to understand and mobilize our own stories and transformations; indeed, we can think of literature as a place where philosophies of personality are put into play.

How to Hold Multiple Truths to be Self-Evident: Late Thoughts After the Women’s March

On January 22, I drove back from Washington, D.C. The day before, I’d been one of the 500,000 that filled out Independence Avenue, one of the specks in those awe-inspiring aerial shots that plastered the news. I’d been cold and hungry and dehydrated and I had not felt any of that discomfort until I sat down for dinner later that night and nearly wept at the sensation of sinking into a seat.

How to Hold Multiple Truths to be Self-Evident: Late Thoughts After the Women’s March Read More »

On January 22, I drove back from Washington, D.C. The day before, I’d been one of the 500,000 that filled out Independence Avenue, one of the specks in those awe-inspiring aerial shots that plastered the news. I’d been cold and hungry and dehydrated and I had not felt any of that discomfort until I sat down for dinner later that night and nearly wept at the sensation of sinking into a seat.

“The Taxi Driver Laments,” by Adrianne Kalfopoulou

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What’s happening, did you hear? / I want to get home to catch the news tonight / but can’t say no to someone who needs a ride / —there’s no metro again? / There’s always something. / We’re losing our minds in all this. / But you know I’m a Socialist, I’ve never / voted for anything right-wing, ever, but / what’s happened to him—he’s a good guy / you know. I’ve had him in this cab / when he was the minister of education, / he’s a good guy, I mean I like him / but something’s wrong, how did he get us / into this crazy situation?

“The Taxi Driver Laments,” by Adrianne Kalfopoulou Read More »

What’s happening, did you hear? / I want to get home to catch the news tonight / but can’t say no to someone who needs a ride / —there’s no metro again? / There’s always something. / We’re losing our minds in all this. / But you know I’m a Socialist, I’ve never / voted for anything right-wing, ever, but / what’s happened to him—he’s a good guy / you know. I’ve had him in this cab / when he was the minister of education, / he’s a good guy, I mean I like him / but something’s wrong, how did he get us / into this crazy situation?

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