The Whole is Less than the Sum of the Parts

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism.”
    Joseph Ratzinger, 18 April 2005

I might not be a great fan the conservative (some prefer to call it reactionary) politics characterising the present Vatican administration, but Ratzinger’s phrase ‘dictatorship of relativism’ strikes chord with me. Relativism is one of the features of post-modernity, or at least one of the things that most people who have some notion of what post-modernity means associate with it, and it is one of its most liberating and troublesome aspects at the same time. Read the rest »

CTHEORY.NET > 1000 Days of Theory: Born Again Ideology by Arthur Kroker

This looks like a fascinating paper; I do not have the time to read beyond the introduction at the moment, but will need to come back to it.

OK, I read through it now. The paper is couched in heavy, redundant, never-ceasing, tiresome rhetoric (yeah, something like that), and the bubble of intellectual sophistication bursts when within a few paragraphs the author starts speaking of special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics while making it clear he has no clue that the two are distinct (Einstein was not only not the father of the latter, but a vocal opponent of it!).

However, if you can put up with the style, it might well be worth your while ploughing through the rhetorical muck, as the author has some genuine insights to offer on the role and significance of evangelicalism, or perhaps more precisely, pre-millennial fundamentalism, in contemporary American politics.

Today I came across this excellent commentary of the self-serving inconsistency in American attitudes toward contemporary democratic uprisings. This is well worth reading; it brought back to me the tension between democracy as an ideal, democracy as a political reality, democracy as an ideology, and democracy as a slogan. Read the rest »

I hate the election campaign period; to be subjected day in and day out to those self-important speeches (that both our politicians and we know are nothing but substanceless oratory exercises) is beyond what I can bear.

You have probably guessed by now that I am not fond of politicians. That is an understatement. I know Jesus says we are to love all, but the mere sight of Blair, or overhearing of his voice, fills me with anger and revulsion; I am a mere sinner. Unfortunatly politicians do matter. Read the rest »

Boing Boing has an article about a French filmaker who got fined for copyright infrigement because of a character in his film whistling the Internationale, the anthem of the international communist movement:

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

Licence holders of the world unite! Any discounts for students, OAPs and the unemployed? Don’t hold your breath; you can copyright ideals, but you cannot afford to be idealistic with copyright.

(I wonder if anyone is pursuing a patent application on the hammer and sickle; surely there is some money to be made there.)

It seems that in Germany they cracked the old problem what to do with dog poo: read it here, with more images here.