Michael Weinman Archives - Public Seminar

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In the Shadow of the Swastika

A Reply to Lindsay Parkhowell’s ‘Irony and Historical Detachment’

August 8, 2018 • by Max L. Feldman

It all started with a Facebook post. Upon arrival at London Gatwick airport, professor and Public Seminar editor Michael Weinman saw an advertisement on which someone had drawn a Swastika. Shocked, he uploaded a hastily taken photograph. One commenter argued that the Swastika should not be shocking because it is an ancient ...

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Irony and Historical Detachment

Analysis/discussion of pastiche in social media

June 29, 2018 • by Lindsay Parkhowell

This second interpretation is what I want to focus on. I want to show that instead of being a form of humor the graffiti in this image is representative of a strain of urbane, ironic detachment that has become pervasive in Anglophone cultures over the past decades. I want to ...

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Making Room for Democracy

On the beauty of gray, the social condition, and individual and group responsibility

June 1, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

In my Friday posts, I have focused on the beauty of gray, presenting arguments for the good over the ideal and for openness to people and principles other than our own. I have argued, further, that these are preconditions for acting together against the dark forces of our times, and ...

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A Gray Post on a Sunny Friday Afternoon

Democracy and the Social Condition

January 26, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

It’s sunny this morning here in New York. Nonetheless, from this day forward, and retroactively, I am going to label my weekly posts “Gray Friday.” I am doing so because all of my posts have been informed by my appreciation of the beauty of the gray, and because I see ...

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Jeffrey C. Isaac, John McCain and Me

Thinking about a Democratic Antifa

October 27, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Isaac documents the danger that is White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. General Kelley’s disciplined authoritarianism may be more “adult” than that of his boss. Yet, as Isaac observes, it is enabling and not controlling the threat Trump presents to American democracy. Analyzing the interactive context of Trump’s telephone conversation with ...

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The Earth Quake, Hurricanes, Political Madness and Dilemmas of Free Speech

The Life of the Mind Online

September 22, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am bewildered. How can so much bad news be happening at the same time? A major earthquake, one horrendous hurricane after another, the Republicans in Congress on the brink of finally making sure that millions -- old, poor and infirm -- can’t go to the doctor? Then there is President ...

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Great Books Socialism?

Intellectual Traditions Matter for Movement Building and Identity Formation

April 6, 2017 • by Tim Lacy

Late in 2016, Molly Worthen lauded the great books idea as an antidote to liberalism’s ills in the Age of Trump. In “Can I Go to Great Books Camp?” Worthen notes that studying the history of ideas is always connected to great books. One assumption of Worthen’s, which I endorse, ...