Marcel Duchamp, 'Fountain,' Arafat Early last century, Duchamp notoriously spoofed modern art with a new form that he named the 'readymade.' A found object - an objet trouvé - became 'art' at his hands simply through the act of christening. The artifice of the artist was shown to be, given the right cultural-institutional conditions, almost alchemical. Warhol then took things a step further - in effect showing, without apology to Walter Benjamin, that even mass-production and

What distinguishes actual devotees of Marx, including Labour Zionists, from mere ‘leftists,’ ‘democratic socialists,’ and even some (not all) ‘Western,’ or ‘Cultural’ Marxists themselves is our focus on what and how we produce - how we collaboratively construct our material lives, in ways that could, but still don’t, give expression to our real inner genius and creative autonomy. There is of course no real tension between such a focus, on the one hand, and devotion to carefu

A beautiful tenet of Marx and his circle - a truth they not only propounded, but lived and lived FOR - was that class could in large part determine, but would not in the future define us. Hence to be on the right side of class struggle was to fight in effect for the end of class structures themselves. Each could in due course be everything. Thus we would 'win' when we no longer are tokens of pre-given types, but become types of our own - when we collapse the type-token disti

I''m going to do something a bit out of my ordinary with this post: First, I am not going to advance any controversial claim. And second, I am going to recommend a book - a compendium, really - recently published by a friend. The fellow in question is Gregg Rosenberg. I first became aware of Gregg in his capacity as an accomplished cognitive scientist and philosopher of mind. Fellow philosophers and AI professionals might know Gregg as a close friend and former colleague of D

Among the many people who've long been interested in the modern movement from feudal socio-political-economic arrangements to political, then social, then economic democracy, I doubt I'm alone in sometimes having wondered whatever became of the third term in the modernity-inaugurating French Revolutionary triumvirate 'liberté, égalité, fraternité.' One hears calls for and defenses of the first two, liberty and equality, all the time, to this day. One seldom hears, by contrast

There was a time, for a while, when I would feel merely irritated by 'Middle East flareups,' when they occurred, as late as 2022 and early 2023. Hence sometimes I tweeted impatiently in response, not distinguishing causes or 'sides.' It seemed to me then that these 'ancient religious animosities,' as I then ill-consideredly considered them, were no more than unwelcome eruptions and interruptions. They'd distract us from real progress, I then feared, which seemed to me possibl

(Domestic/Global Decoupling Authority Under the 1975 EPCA and 2016 CAA) In the early mid-1970s, theocratic forces hostile to the US and its allies acted to impede petroleum extraction and exports from the Middle East. This brought immediate and unprecedented crisis to the US and global economies. Gasoline prices quadrupled virtually overnight, while petroleum-dependent manufacturing and other production costs shot up similarly. Consumer prices quickly followed suit, as did em

For some years now I've been pushing two 'prophecies': The first is the Marxian/Keynesian proposition that productive-tech developments will in time make it possible for most 'work' to become 'art' or 'play.' The second is the Federovian proposition that health-tech developments will in time make it possible not simply for lifespans, but indeed 'healthspans,' to be lengthened indefinitely as the genetic 'aging code' is deciphered and then deactivated. Well, now we are at the

Many here, I assume, are familiar with the notion of 'the Liar's Dividend.' In essence, the term refers to the cover that the mendacious come to enjoy when pervasive dishonesty confronts everyone in a given epistemic environment with uncertainty not only as to what to believe, but also as to how even to ascertain what CAN be believed. The liar in such an environment need no longer fear any form of accountability. For even if, improbably, something s/he said or did is found to

I am what might be called an Egalitarian-Productivist. It is our natural estate as humans, I think, to create. And since this is true of each of us, we all have equal claims upon the materials with which we produce. (In the more cosmic or 'spiritual' dimension, one might say that being made in the image of a Creator G-d means that our lot is to co-create the world, our shared Olam, with that G-d.) This is why I have loved Marx, who from the start of his theoretical and polem

I would not be surprised were we eventually to learn that Trump, Putin, and Xi all agree on the current Middle East actions, and that they're loosely coordinating on them. Indeed I'll be surprised if we learn they are NOT doing so. Consider the 'objective functions' of all three leaders and their administrations, considered first jointly, then severally... Jointly: None of these leaders or their nations benefit by ongoing Middle East chaos or instability, and all three appea

First hearing Hegseth prattling on about Jesus's love of the new war last month, then hearing some Catholic NGO dude drone on about how Jesus and Pope Leo hate the war this month, and now seeing a piece in The Free Press making 'the Catholic Case for the War on Iran' has led me to notice a change that's occurred in my affect ... I've never been what I would call 'comfortable' with those who publicly proffer putatively religious reasons for supporting or opposing particular

The same metabolic optimism that renders me prey to Whig history renders me, I think, prey to what might be called Whig futurism as well. So here is a thought about the medium-term future ... One reason it's easy to be hopeful about the future of certain 'civilization states' including Israel, China, India, and Persia once it shakes off its Dark Age mullah captivity is that they manage somehow to retain a pervasive sense of ancientness and living tradition that spares them th

AI-Generated Image: 'Confusion' I'm struck by two features of the current coverage of and punditry on the new Middle East 'cease fire' ... First is how radically divergent and indeed mutually incompatible the nevertheless deadpan, matter-of-fact characterizations of the resultant lull's significance are. Is there a ceasefire? Does it have terms? Is either side 'in a stronger position'? If so, what are the terms? What are the indicia and measures of strength? Second is how m

I don't know whether it's merely my impression, or if others too have noticed a massive uptick of late in 'confident' pronouncements and 'authoritative' preachments from seemingly every conceivable quarter. I mean, in particular, pronouncements and preachments about matters with which the pronouncers and preachers have literally no acquaintance either (a) direct or (b) reliably indirect via truth-preserving testimonial or other evidentiary chains? In my limited experience, t

I hope that the following furry-worry will quickly prove needless in immediate retrospect. But I am definitely fretting a bit now, perhaps over-morbidly as I await a post-holiday tamiflu prescription, that either (a) the President has 'lost the plot' where the Iran action is concerned, or (b) I myself never had the plot right in the first place. First I'll re-up what I've thought to be the plot. Then I'll explain my new worry. The plot, as I've seen it, is that the civilized

I don't know whether 'it's just me,' or I'm 'simply tired,' or what, but I seem to have reached a 'less talk, more rock' stage where the consumption of WH communications about the Iran action are concerned. If you're going to do something, ffs just do it. Get on with it. State a simple, consistent objective - e.g., acceptance of 'the President's full 15 point plan' - and pursue it. Let your actions do most of your talking. Don't throat-clear and threaten intended action day a

An abbreviated post today in respect for the holidays ... Michael (Walzer) read the Prayer for Peace at Shabbat services Saturday. The quoted line above remains my favorite. Later in the day, as I strolled through the East Village feeling the Spring all around, I happened upon Michael, his spouse Judy, and another of our fellow congregants at a sidewalk cafe, with my latest book, which I had earlier conveyed as a gift, on the table between them. We all laughed with delight at

The Shabbat that occurs during Pesach, when Yechezqel (Ezekiel) 37 is among the Tanakh readings at shul, and Holy Saturday, a day during which Christians contemplate just what it meant for the object of their faith literally to die before subsequently rising, seems a good day to think about death and rebirth both as a metaphor and as an aspiration. Resurrection as metaphor seems to be salient all around us right now. China is drawing all manner of attention, admiring and fea

Michael Walzer, and our Seder Game I was blessed, as a student, to get to study under most of the contemporary thinkers I most admired at the time, from Dummett in my phil of maths days through Shiller in my finance days. Often I felt as though there must be some manner of 'Divine Intervention' at work in these associations - as when Michael D. turned out to frequent the same church that I did (St. Aloysius on Woodstock Road in Oxford), and when the Yale Daily News announced