From the Editors Archives - Page 129 of 171

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Charlottesville and Trump

David Duke Explains Neo-Nazi Violence to You

August 12, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

There is fire and fury today on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. Neo-nazis and white supremacists, some bearing guns, are violently protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee and attacking anti-racist counter-protestors. David Duke has declared that this is the fulfillment of President Trump’s vision for America. “We are determined ...

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Substantive Populism

Against the devaluation of a term

August 11, 2017 • by Federico Finchelstein

In this article, Professor of History Federico Finchelstein argues that, despite its overuse and conceptual stretching, the category of populism is worth preserving if we want to understand our current political moment. The original Spanish version of this article can be found at Argentina’s newspaper Clarín. This piece was translated by ...

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“What the Foucault !?!” (The Fourth Edition of “Waiting for Foucault”)

On Structure and Event

August 10, 2017 • by Marshall Sahlins

Here's some intellectual diversion from the impending nuclear catastrophe: It's from the forthcoming "What the Foucault !?!"(The fourth edition of "Waiting for Foucault") Structure on one hand, agency and contingency on the other, are not opposed historical determinants in the sense that they exclude one another. On the contrary, each is ...

“What the Foucault !?!” (The Fourth Edition of “Waiting for Foucault”)

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What Are the Costs of Libertarianism?

Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains, Revisited

August 10, 2017 • by Claire Potter

Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America (New York: Viking Press, 2017.) Democracy in Chains, historian Nancy MacLean's account of James McGill Buchanan and public choice economics, has caused an unusual stir in the few months since its publication. You may have followed the lengthy ...

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Trump, Nukes, and Democracy at its Limit

The whole world is watching

August 9, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

In the history of political thought there have been many rationales offered for democracy as an ideal of self-government, just as there have been many criticisms of the very idea of democracy. One of the most cogent rationales is the simple idea that regular democratic elections make political power accountable, because ...

Trump, Nukes, and Democracy at its Limit

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Three Values of Anger

Chapter Five from ‘Sing the Rage’ by Sonali Chakravarti

August 9, 2017 • by Sonali Chakravarti

—Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider Anger, like other emotions, is closely related to a cluster of affective predispositions, including resentment, sadness, and frustration. Insisting on a narrow definition of anger misses the way these emotions often overlap; conversely a broad interpretation of the emotions, writ large, lacks analytical specificity. Cutting through these ...

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One out of Four Older Workers Lack Employer Provided Health Insurance

July Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55

August 8, 2017 • by Teresa Ghilarducci

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today reported a 3.2% unemployment rate for workers age 55 and older in July, no change from June. While the low unemployment rate may indicate a healthy labor market for older workers, it doesn't tell us about job quality. Only 76% of older workers obtain health insurance through their ...

One out of Four Older Workers Lack Employer Provided Health Insurance

Education

Finding Value in Schoolhouses as Public Things

A Reply to Johann Neem

August 7, 2017 • by Michael Weinman

I am fully persuaded by Neem’s diagnosis of the current crisis in American public education, and hope we all take his lesson to heart. In this reply, I hope to augment and perhaps slightly shift the prognosis that his (and Honig’s) focus logically entails: that if we want to save ...

Finding Value in Schoolhouses as Public Things

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We Are Swarming, Again.

Thoughts on William Connolly’s new book, Facing the Planetary: Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming

August 7, 2017 • by Richard Porteous

‘Swarming’ has a rich and complex history in political and philosophical literatures. That history percolates in political theorist William Connolly’s recent book Facing the Planetary: Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming in which he proposes a ‘Politics of Swarming,’ and even resonates in his writing style. The question of ‘swarming’ intersects ...

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How Buddhism and Marxism Can End Our Suffering

Interdependence as a Response to Global Crisis

August 6, 2017 • by Hawa Allan

Terry Gibbs, Why the Dalai Lama is a Socialist: Buddhism and the Compassionate Society (Plymouth, UK: Zed Books, 2017). Distributed in the United States by the University of Chicago Press. Paper: 19.95. "I’m not going to argue in this book that we all need to be Buddhist Marxists," writes Terry Gibbs in ...

How Buddhism and Marxism Can End Our Suffering

Disability

What’s Next for the Health Care Debate?

A Demand for Process and Transparency

August 5, 2017 • by Miranda Yaver

While the Senate was voting on the motion to proceed with the straight repeal plan that would eliminate coverage for millions of Americans, I was in the exam room of my doctor’s office, and using my newly-acquired Medicaid for the first time. How did I feel? Suffice it to say that ...

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Hungarian ‘Exceptionalism’

Reflections on Jeffrey C. Isaac’s Illiberal Democracy

August 4, 2017 • by András Bozóki

This piece is part of the discussion generated by Jeffrey C. Isaac’s piece, Illiberal Democracy. Is it possible to have an increasingly flourishing autocratic regime in the European Union? After all, the Union was built on liberal democratic values, as a community with “ever closer” cooperation. Member states of the European Union ...