Ideology is Dead! Long Live Ideology!

On the Ideological Character of Liberalism & Socialism

Something in the Night is Dangerous According to Jeffrey Goldfarb, founder and publisher of Public Seminar (PS), I am dangerous. I threaten to undermine democracy. While Goldfarb’s comments may not have been specifically targeted at me, they are targeted at the kind of socialist critical theory and practice for which I often argue (for just ...
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Ideology is Dead! Long Live Ideology!

What Do We Even Want From One Another?

Anxiety, Permeation and Identity in the Age of a Slowly Imploding Liberalism

In a time identified by the breakdown of fantasy, xenophobic malaise, and the salve of identity politics, philosopher Luce deLire and psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster take us to the limits of 'the self.' They muse on anxiety's collectivizing forces, the political instrumentalization of unsolvably fractured identities, and their permeation. They suggest ...
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What Do We Even Want From One Another?

Thinking Politically in the Age of Trump

Introduction to #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One

A note from the author: This seems like a good time to follow up Jeffrey Goldfarb’s column of last week by posting the Introduction to my new Public Seminar book, #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One, which is available from Public Seminar as a free download here. "I merely took the energy it takes to pout, ...
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Thinking Politically in the Age of Trump

Alabama on My Mind

A blues reflection on Martin Luther King, Jr.

This past week was the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. King is ever-present in our public consciousness, related to the iconic status he has assumed over the years, and to the fact that his birthday is celebrated as a national holiday ...
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Alabama on My Mind

Damon Linker is Wrong About Liberals

Here’s why

Damon Linker is a respected writer, columnist for The Week, and editor (University of Pennsylvania Press). He is also a Facebook friend of mine. I enjoy his columns, and often exchange comments with him. He has offered strong and admirable criticisms of Trump, and of the ways the Republican party and ...
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Damon Linker is Wrong About Liberals

The Right’s Walls and the Left’s Commons

Critical reflections on the long – running clash between left and right

In a knife-edge election, many are the causes that tip the balance between victory and defeat. Politics is, as Branch Rickey memorably said of baseball, “a game of inches.” Minor changes in a campaign scenario produce major differences. Surely Donald Trump’s victory derived in no small part from his appeal ...
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The Right’s Walls and the Left’s Commons

Thoughts on the Hungarian and Polish New Right in Power

Eviscerating the Constitutional Court and purging the judiciary, complete politicization of the civil service, turning public media into a government mouthpiece, restricting opposition prerogatives in parliament, unilateral wholesale change of the Constitution or plain violation of it, official tolerance and even promotion of racism and bigotry, administrative assertion of traditional ...

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Thoughts on the Hungarian and Polish New Right in Power

Mr. Clinton’s Lament

In 2014, when the editorial staff of The New Republic resigned en masse to protest its looming corporatization by a publisher aiming to convert it to “a vertically integrated digital media company,” I was a bit smug in my surprise. Ironic, I thought: the magazine, which lurched from “popular front” ...
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A Response to Jeffrey Goldfarb

Dear Jeff, Thank you for your open letter. I am afraid that in spite of your admiration for the color gray, you have distorted all of my positions, reducing complex, nuanced arguments to black vs white caricatures that I do not recognize and that I disown. Briefly: For me, the central issue ...
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The Disability Paradox

Further thoughts on inequality, disability, and the imaginal

Do you have a disability? Do you want to work? This seemingly innocent pairing of questions should immediately raise a red flag, for it is technically oxymoronic: in the United States, the disabled, by definition, are those who cannot work, at least in any significant sense. Granted, ...

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