In zijn boek The Reactionary Mind betoogt Corey Robin dat reactionaire mensen in sterke mate worden gedreven door de overtuiging dat ze al hun 'minderen' de mond mogen snoeren en 'hun plaats moeten wijzen' -- zo nodig met geweld. Dit deels omdat ze er sterk van overtuigd zijn dat 'inferieuren' geen…
For decades, we've been hearing how everyone should 'take responsibility for their actions,' and that we are each responsible for our 'success' (or lack thereof). And because this is obviously pretty glib, it's fostered a kind of reflexive denial in others. As such, we seem to me stuck in a false…
Everybody knows that human societies have long been organized hierarchically, and many people in fact believe that complex society requires this. Largely unknown however is the fact that there is a great deal of evidence that suggests that institutionalized hierarchy is very much a late-comer to hu…
Both David Harvey and Noam Chomsky have done a lot to analyze and explain the rise of neoliberalism. Both have pointed out that it should primarily be understood as a political project aimed at discouraging and disenfranchising 'ordinary' people, which gained steam shortly after the ‘social unrest’…
As Walter Wink has pointed out, violence is a tool that allows us to realize certain outcomes that seem desirable to us: to change either the person we inflict it on, or those around them, by 'making an example' of them. Resorting to violence as a matter of policy (as our current justice system doe…
Reintegrating the dismal science There are a number of ways to explain what money is, and what it allows us to do. Sadly, the "origin story" that we were all taught in school is a very misleading morality tale, in which exchange of goods is presented as a wholly separate sphere of life. Supposedly,…
One of the main reasons why I created this blog is in order to introduce people to, and explain the personal, cultural and institutional consequences of taking Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication (NVC) seriously. I was introduced to NVC a few years ago, shortly after I and my partner went…
Exploring 'meritocracy', both conceptually and in practice.
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