Mikhail Bakhtin also discusses monologism which denies the reality, or perspectives, of other beings and cultures. Monologism engages in an extreme certainty, or even solipsism, in which the perceptive experiences of other people and cultures are blanket-rejected as not worthy of consideration or lacking equal-rights. In the most extreme manifestations of monologism there is the attempt to eliminate any dissenting voices because by existing they challenge the controlling narrative. Bakhtin states that monologism: “pretends to be the ultimate word. It closes down the represented world and represented persons.” To restate, monologism is the process of controlling ideologies that seek to eliminate any “other” voices or possibilities. It does not permit creative responses or challenging questions. Dialogism, or perhaps more simply phrased, open playful dialogue, is open to the manifold possibilities and potentials of various other ways of thinking and existing (292-293). The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire considers dialogic learning to be the key to the development of critical consciousness in citizens. Cognitive neuroscientist Adele Diamond in her discussion of the “science of attention” believes that this form of engaged, responsive awareness is the root of healthy development of our brains and body. -- Michael Dean Benton, "Dialogic Cinephilia" (Revised 2022)
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With the advent of Late Modernity, the development of technology brought about a dramatic expansion in the possibilities of subjugation.
A first taste of this new scenario was offered by the totalitarian regimes of the Twentieth Century, with their systems of total policing. Yet, as noted by the intellectual Piers Paolo Pasolini, despite their murderous brutality, totalitarian regimes had to settle merely for public displays of obedience to their commands. Their formidable claws were still unable to penetrate the hard kernel of the imagination of their subjects. Things changed, Pasolini continued, with the expansion of new forms of communication, from the first television to the omnipresence of the 'society of the spectacle.' By the last quarter of the century, the dominantsociety were able not only to control external behaviours but also to instill effective forms of self-policing within their subjects. What used to be simple propaganda developed instead into the silent transformation of individual souls, while the laughable spectacle of totalitarian parades turned into the spontaneous processions of self-exploiting workers and consumers.
Thus, in the contemporary age, the pale sun of Late Modernity shines over a two-fold struggle for autonomy: the fight to preserve the possibility of socially deviant behaviours (including one'a active rebellion against perceived injustices), and the challenge to decolonize one's interiority from the socially dominant ideas, assumptions and diktats that pervade every person's sense of self and reality (307-308).
Campagna, Frederico. Otherworldly: Mediterranean Lessons on Escaping History. Bloomsbury, 2025.
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"Ethics and politics look at both how we should regard and accommodate each other and what kind of things make it possible to, for example, treat each other with respect and what kinds of things don't. That I might view you as "weird" or even "inhuman" (politics) may very much dictate how I then treat you (ethics). When we examine more closely how we think about the world, it turns out that ethics and politics are inseparable." (21) -- Veronique Pin-Fat "How Do We Begin to Think About the World?" Global Politics. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2013: 20 - 38.
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Anderson, Ellie and David M. Peña-Guzmán. "Confidence." #147 (November 11, 2025) ["Ellie and David discuss confidence. Modernity has created a crisis of confidence, leading to the demand that we all maximize our confidence. But what is confidence? Is it a personality trait or a relational concept? What causes under- and over-confidence? And is instilling confidence an equity issue? Your hosts think through Charles Pépin’s pillars of confidence, Don A. Moore's formula for calibrating your confidence, and the gendered nature of confidence through bodily expressions."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”
Don A. Moore, Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely
Charles Pépin, Self-Confidence: A Philosophy
Iris Marion Young, “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body."]
Bassili, Rafaela. "What Kind of Country Is This?: On The Secret Agent." Notebook (November 26, 2025) ["Kleber Mendonça Filho’s paranoid thriller captures the absurdity and horror peculiar to Brazil."]
Bellaigue, Christopher de. "Hype and Fraud in India." The New York Review of Books (January 15, 2026) ["Narendra Modi is pursuing his vision of “developed India” through distorted claims of progress, stolen elections, and anti-Muslim policies."]
Cohn, Lindsay P., et al. "The Dangers of Deploying the Military on U.S. Soil." Lawfare Daily (November 8, 2025) [" Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson held a series of conversations with contributors to a special series of articles on “The Dangers of Deploying the Military on U.S. Soil” that Lawfare recently published on its website, in coordination with our friends at Protect Democracy. Participants include: Alex Tausanovitch, Policy Advocate at Protect Democracy; Laura Dickinson, a Professor at George Washington University Law School; Joseph Nunn, Counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center; Chris Mirasola, an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston Law Center; Mark Nevitt, a Professor at Emory University School of Law; Elaine McCusker, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; and Lindsay P. Cohn, a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. Together, they discussed how and why domestic deployments are being used, the complex set of legal authorities allowing presidents and governors to do so, and what the consequences might be, both for U.S. national security and for U.S. civil-military relations more generally."]
Dabhoiwala, Fara. “What is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea." LARB Radio Hour (September 5, 2025) ["Kate Wolf speaks with historian Fara Dabhoiwala about his new book, What is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea. A foundational aspect of the U.S. Constitution, free speech is a relatively recent invention and one rooted less in democratic ideals than first may be clear. Tracking its evolution from the pre-modern age through the Enlightenment to our present day, Dabhoiwala explores how free speech and freedom of the press initially served imperial and corporate interests rather than those of common citizens. His book also examines the counterintuitive ways free speech continues to be an engine for questionable ends today, benefitting tech companies and upholding misogyny and racism. But while it has never been equally distributed, free speech has also resulted, at times, in more freedom rather than less, so what are we to do with this abiding concept and how might we modify its absolutism to better serve those it claims to protect?"]
Doctorow, Cory. "How to Stop “Enshittification” Before It Kills the Internet." Capitalisn't (December 11, 2025) ["There’s a word that’s gained a lot of popularity in the last year: “enshittification”. It refers to a trajectory many see with digital platforms: they initially offer immense value to users, only to systematically degrade that quality over time in order to extract maximum surplus for shareholders. We invited the coiner of this term, science fiction author and activist Cory Doctorow, on the podcast to discuss whether he thinks this decline is an inevitable feature of digital markets or a consequence of specific policy failures. And, most importantly, how he thinks it could be reversed. For Doctorow, "enshittification" is not simply a result of "revealed preferences", where users tolerate worse service because they value the platform, but rather the outcome of a regulatory environment that has permitted the creation of high switching costs and the elimination of competitors. Doctorow also argues that historically, interoperability acted as an engine of dynamism, allowing new entrants to lower the barriers to entry. But current IP frameworks, such as anti-circumvention laws, have been "weaponized" to prevent this, effectively allowing firms to enforce cartels and engage in rent-seeking behavior. Finally, Doctorow offers a critical assessment of the current AI boom, arguing that the sector is creating "reverse centaurs", where human labor is conscripted to correct algorithmic errors, and warns of a potential asset bubble driven by inflated revenue attribution."]
Glick, Jacob. "A Jan. 6 Committee Staff Member on Far-Right Extremism." Lawfare Daily (January 10, 2026) ["The Jan. 6 committee’s final report on the insurrection is over 800 pages, including the footnotes. But there’s still new information coming out about the committee’s findings and its work. Last week, we brought you one of the staffers who worked on the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation into the role of social media in the insurrection. Today, we’re featuring a conversation with Jacob Glick, who served as investigative counsel on the committee and is currently a policy counsel at Georgetown’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. His work in the Jan. 6 investigation focused on social media and far-right extremism. Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with Jacob about what the investigation showed him about the forces that led to Jan. 6, how he understands the threat still posed by extremism, and what it was like interviewing Twitter whistleblowers and members of far-right groups who stormed the Capitol."]
Glied, Sherry and Paul Starr. "Health Insurance in America." Throughline (February 27, 2025) ["Millions of Americans depend on their jobs for health insurance. But that's not the case in many other wealthy countries. How did the U.S. end up with a system that's so expensive, yet leaves so many people vulnerable? On this episode, how a temporary solution created an everlasting problem." Guests: Sherry Glied, Dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University; Paul Starr, professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University."]
Godar, Bryn and Carolyn Shapiro. "Can Minnesota Prosecute Ice Agent Jonathan Ross." Lawfare Daily (January 22, 2026) ["Senior Editor Anna Bower spoke with Carolyn Shapiro, co-director of Chicago-Kent College of Law's Institute on the Supreme Court, and Bryna Godar, a Staff Attorney with the at the University of Wisconsin Law School. The discussion covered the state of Minnesota’s jurisdiction to criminally investigate Jonathan Ross, the ICE official who reportedly shot and killed Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7. The conversation also covered obstacles state prosecutors might face in pursuing a potential prosecution and the likelihood that Ross could raise what’s known as 'Supremacy Clause immunity.'"]
Goi, Leonardo. "In Sunny Southland: Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Pynchon’s California." Notebook (November 24, 2025) ["By 1970, when Anderson was born in Studio City, Pynchon had quit his gig writing safety articles for Boeing in Seattle and decamped to Los Angeles. He landed in a small apartment in Manhattan Beach, which would appear in his books as the fictional Gordita Beach, a last resort for bums, drifters, punks, and drop-outs determined to steer clear of the straight life. And though his novels have journeyed far and wide—from New York City (V., 1963; Bleeding Edge, 2013) to Chicago (Against the Day, 2006); from the American colonies (Mason & Dixon, 1997) to Europe, Namibia, and Siberia (Gravity’s Rainbow, 1973)—Pynchon has become closely identified with the countercultural hangover that swept through post-Manson California and serves as backdrop for the two texts Anderson would go on to adapt, Inherent Vice (2009) and now Vineland (1990). Novelist and filmmaker are unmistakably smitten with the textures of “sunny Southland,” to use a phrase popularized in the late 1800s by newspaper editor Harrison Gray Otis (who incidentally lifted it from the Confederacy). But they reserve their deepest feeling for its eccentric residents—drifters who straddle the old and the new, who have only just started to realize how the changing of the guard is leaving them behind, who have seen their turf transform to the point they can barely recognize it. Still, neither artist has ever simplistically romanticized that bygone milieu. Their characters fumble as they navigate a world rife with signs, secrets, and conspiracies, a California candied not with “identifiable cit[ies]” but with “grouping[s] of concepts,” where everyone and everything suggests “a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning,” per The Crying of Lot 49. That novel came out in April 1966, just a few months before Reagan was elected governor, promising to crack down on the “filthy speech movement” fueled by the student protests at Berkeley and to send “the welfare bums back to work.” The repression and censorship that would dominate Reagan-era California (and eventually all of the United States under his presidency) permeate Vineland and Inherent Vice, in which the actor-turned-politico serves as an omnipresent specter, a kind of daemon ex machina restoring fascism at home and abroad. A mood of chronic paranoia permeates Pynchon’s prose and Anderson’s cinema; what binds them isn’t just some autobiographical affair with Los Angeles but an interest in its sinister side: In the words of Inherent Vice’s Detective Lieutenant “Bigfoot” Bjornsen, “The dark forces that are always there just out of the sunlight.”"]
Jasechko, Scott, et al. "Rapid groundwater decline and some cases of recovery in aquifers globally." Nature (January 2024) ["Groundwater resources are vital to ecosystems and livelihoods. Excessive groundwater withdrawals can cause groundwater levels to decline, resulting in seawater intrusion, land subsidence, streamflow depletion and wells running dry. However, the global pace and prevalence of local groundwater declines are poorly constrained, because in situ groundwater levels have not been synthesized at the global scale. Here we analyse in situ groundwater-level trends for 170,000 monitoring wells and 1,693 aquifer systems in countries that encompass approximately 75% of global groundwater withdrawals. We show that rapid groundwater-level declines (>0.5 m year−1) are widespread in the twenty-first century, especially in dry regions with extensive croplands. Critically, we also show that groundwater-level declines have accelerated over the past four decades in 30% of the world’s regional aquifers. This widespread acceleration in groundwater-level deepening highlights an urgent need for more effective measures to address groundwater depletion. Our analysis also reveals specific cases in which depletion trends have reversed following policy changes, managed aquifer recharge and surface-water diversions, demonstrating the potential for depleted aquifer systems to recover."]
Johnson, Allan. "Literature as Occultism." Against Everyone #308 (November 25, 2025) ["... ALLAN JOHNSON Professor of English Literature at University of Surrey, meditation coach, and author of the excellent book, The Sacred Life of Modernist Literature: Immanence, Occultism, and the Making of the Modern World. In that book, Allan states: “The occult has always walked the perilous line between desiring a textual form while resisting the possibility that this form can ever be completely achieved.” One place we find the textual form of the occult is in literature - but I don’t mean that in the way that you think… One of my big frustrations with spiritual influencers who are online, have podcasts, write books and more is that most of them don’t seem to have a good grasp of art, but particularly literature. One reason why is that… well reading books that have occult forms usually take a lot of work. Lots of occultists, magicians, pagans do something like this: they read literature that has magical content and create metaphors and analogies that - all-too conveniently - mirror the lessons of their own esoteric view. And they reach for the easiest usual suspects: Lord of the Rings, Ursula K Le Guin, Star Wars, Paulo Coehlo, etc. But the location of occult and esoteric strength in literature is in its innovative forms and styles - in novelists who wrote in tensions between absence and presence, in multiple innovative structures and voices, in elliptical maneuvers and sentences that change their direction before you finish them. These forms were brought to us most prominently in modernist literature - in James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Kafka, and more. And it’s also found in poets like TS Elliot, Ezra Pound, and WB Yeats. In the works of modernist writers, the reader’s involvement is demanded to complete the text. They showed us that fiction itself is an occult endeavor - and that reading is a moral technology, maybe one of the only moral technologies. With literature, we meet the other mind, and we co-create reality through symbols, light, and imagination. Writers that ask us to meet them, to do as much in the reading as they do in the writing, bring us so far in our development. They are writers who initiate us with their works. Allan and I talk about all of this in depth. We also talk about Marianne Williamson, Wilhelm Reich, psychoanalysis, and more."]
Juengst, Eric and Daniel Moseley. "Human Enhancement." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (November 13, 2025) ['At first glance there does not seem to be anything philosophically problematic about human enhancement. Activities such as physical fitness routines, wearing eyeglasses, taking music lessons and meditation are routinely utilized for the goal of enhancing human capacities. But there are a cluster of debates in practical ethics, conventionally labeled as “the ethics of human enhancement”, that do raise philosophical questions. These debates include clinicians’ concerns about the limits of legitimate health care, parents’ worries about their reproductive and rearing obligations, and the fairness of competitive practices like sports and war, and the possibility of improving human moral agency itself. They also involve more general questions about distributive justice, science policy, and the public regulation of medical technologies. As usual in practical ethics, an adequate discussion of any specific debate under this heading quickly requires orientation to the science and the social and political practices of specific enhancement interventions. At each turn in these discussions, wide vistas of background philosophical topics also appear for exploration. Rather than providing a detailed account of this whole landscape, we trace a path of core concerns that winds through the current debates on the ethics of human enhancement, as a guide for those interested in exploring further."]
Kafer, Gary. "There is No A.I." Jump Cut #62 (Winter 2023 - 2024) [Review of Kate Crawford, The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021: "The first chapter, “Earth,” examines the mineral mining practices that underpin the construction of computational systems. In chapter two, “Labor,” Crawford examines the forms of workplace surveillance that enervate data systems—including digital pieceworkers, Amazon warehouses, and assembly lines—all of which subject the body to temporal management. "Data” is the subject of the third chapter, which tracks how datasets are built from harvesting personal information and transformed into pattern recognition models. Chapter four, “Classification,” focuses on how that data is used to construct taxonomies of social differences like race and gender within machine learning systems. Next, Crawford turns to “Affect,” recounting the history of scientific attempts to create universal mappings of facial expressions that now subtend the development of emotion detection systems by tech industries. The final chapter turns to the “State” to explore how the private AI industry is taking an active role in reshaping government activities, including policing and warfare. Crawford’s atlas concludes with a discussion of “Power” and the possibility for justice, which is followed by a brief coda exploring the role of “Space” as the ultimate frontier of AI’s imperial project."]
Lembke, Anna. "The Paradox of Pleasure." Hidden Brain (December 8, 2025) ["All of us think we know what addiction looks like. It’s the compulsive consumption of drugs, alcohol, or nicotine. But psychiatrist Anna Lembke argues that our conception of addiction is far too narrow — and that a broader understanding of addiction might help us to understand why so many people are anxious and depressed. This week, we revisit a 2023 episode that remains of the most popular in the history of our show. We’ll explore how and why humans are wired to pursue pleasure, and all the ways the modern world tempts us with addictive substances and behaviors."
Book:
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, by Anna Lembke, 2021.
Research:
Changes in the Global Burden of Depression from 1990 to 2017: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study, by Qingqing Liu et al., Journal of Psychiatric Research, 2020.
Changing World Happiness, by John F. Helliwell, Haifang Huang, and Shun Wang, World Happiness Report 2019, Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2019.
Cross-Sectional Comparison of the Epidemiology of DSM-5 Generalized Anxiety Disorder Across the Globe, by Ayelet Meron Ruscio et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2017.
Dopamine-Deficient Mice Are Severely Hypoactive, Adipsic, and Aphagic, by Qun-Yong Zhou and Richard D. Palmiter, Cell, 1995.
Changes in Depression Among Abstinent Alcoholics, by Sandra A. Brown and Marc A. Schuckit, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1988.]
Madoff, Ray. "How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy." This is Hell (November 11, 2025) [" You've got $50 trillion, you should be participating in the system the same as regular working Americans. I think it would be better just to bring the richest Americans into our regular income tax system, the way that all other Americans are in it, rather than coming up with special taxes that we say are specifically geared to the rich." Legal scholar Ray Madoff joins us to discuss her new book from the University of Chicago Press, The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy.]
Martel, J.F. "Bergson and Weird Philosophy: JF Martel on Time, Subjectivity, and Weirding Realism." Lepht Hand (November 2, 2025) ["Have you ever felt reality glitch, as though the weird was peeking through the cracks of time or the Real? In this episode of LEPHT HAND, JF Martel joins to explore how Henri Bergson’s concept of duration and Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming invite a radically weird subjectivity, one that consumes rhythms, intensities, and habits across time. We discuss how this non-linear conception of time doesn’t just solve problems but also introduces new ones: what does it mean to be a subject in perpetual flux, and is this mysticism, metaphysics, or simply reality hiding behind a theatre of representation?"]
Milanovic, Branko. "Why Economists Should Care About Inequality." Capitalisn't (November 6, 2025) ["Recently, Bethany and Luigi joined economist and wealth inequality expert Branko Milanovic in front of a live audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival to explore how capitalism, democracy, and income inequality interact. Together, the three discussed the pervasiveness of income inequality around the world, its connections with democracy and political stability, if the inequality that really matters is that between countries, and if capitalism and democracy aren't as intricately connected as we thought. As a scholar of China’s economic system, Milanovic discussed how much of the country’s success can even be attributed to capitalism. In the process, the three unpacked if capitalist societies, particularly in the West, are able to address the very inequality they have produced. Are there free-market mechanisms to correct for inequality or does there need to be government intervention? If income inequality poses a dire threat to democracy, what should capitalists do to preserve the institutions that enabled their wealth in the first place?" Branko Milanovic's Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War.]
Nayler, Ray. "The Mountain In The Sea author Ray Nayler - Hugo & Locus award-winner." Sentietism (1/17/26) ["Ray Nayler is a Hugo and Locus Award winning author. Born in Quebec and raised in California, he lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, and Kosovo as a Foreign Service officer, a Peace Corps volunteer, and an international development worker. Ray's first novel, The Mountain in the Sea won the Locus Award. It was a finalist for the Nebula Arthur C. Clarke, the LA Times Ray Bradbury Awards, and was named a London Times science fiction book of the year. Mountain was listed as one of the best science fiction books of all time by Esquire. Ray's novella The Tusks of Extinction won the 2025 Hugo Award, and was a finalist for the Nebula and Locus Awards. Ray's third book, Where the Axe is Buried, was published in April 2025. Ray's short stories have won the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, France's highest literary prize for science fiction, the Clarkesworld Readers' poll, the Asimov's Readers' Award, the Bifrost readers' award, and have been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Award." Description of The Mountain in the Sea: "Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future. The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed off the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where a species of octopus has been discovered that may have developed its own language and culture. The marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them. She travels to the islands to join DIANIMA’s team: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first (and possibly last) android. The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extra-human intelligence. As Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves. But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. Or what they might do about it. A near-future thriller, a meditation on the nature of consciousness, and an eco-logical call to arms, Ray Nayler’s dazzling literary debut The Mountain in the Sea is a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy."]
Rimbaud, Penny."This is Penny Rimbaud - Part One." Bureau of Lost Culture (October 29, 2025) ["Penny Rimbaud , who has spent more than half a century living the ideals that most of us only talk about, has been described as an activist philosopher, an anarchist, a Zen Buddhist. Though he would likely not recognise those descriptions, he is certainly a poet, a musician, an artist. Born Jeremy John Ratter in 1943, in the late 1960s, together with artist Gee Vaucher, he founded Dial House, an open community and creative refuge in rural Essex. It became both a home and a hub — a living experiment in anarchism, art, and radical living, from which emerged Crass, a band that tore apart punk’s nihilism and replaced it with a fierce moral energy: anti-war, anti-sexism, anti-consumerism — but pro-peace, pro-freedom, and defiantly DIY. Their black-and-white graphics, polemical lyrics, and uncompromising stance made them one of the most influential and challenging acts of their time. When Crass disbanded in 1984, Penny kept on creating, often with Gee. He became a prolific poet, writer, and spoken-word performer, continuing to explore themes of love, pacifism, and spiritual autonomy. Now in his eighties, he still lives and works at Dial House — still questioning authority, still seeking truth through art and language. We range back and forth across Penny's personal history and his thoughts on culture, capitalism, art and the very notion of the self. In his own words: “There is no authority but yourself.”"]
Goi, Leonardo. "In Sunny Southland: Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Pynchon’s California." Notebook (November 24, 2025) ["By 1970, when Anderson was born in Studio City, Pynchon had quit his gig writing safety articles for Boeing in Seattle and decamped to Los Angeles. He landed in a small apartment in Manhattan Beach, which would appear in his books as the fictional Gordita Beach, a last resort for bums, drifters, punks, and drop-outs determined to steer clear of the straight life. And though his novels have journeyed far and wide—from New York City (V., 1963; Bleeding Edge, 2013) to Chicago (Against the Day, 2006); from the American colonies (Mason & Dixon, 1997) to Europe, Namibia, and Siberia (Gravity’s Rainbow, 1973)—Pynchon has become closely identified with the countercultural hangover that swept through post-Manson California and serves as backdrop for the two texts Anderson would go on to adapt, Inherent Vice (2009) and now Vineland (1990). Novelist and filmmaker are unmistakably smitten with the textures of “sunny Southland,” to use a phrase popularized in the late 1800s by newspaper editor Harrison Gray Otis (who incidentally lifted it from the Confederacy). But they reserve their deepest feeling for its eccentric residents—drifters who straddle the old and the new, who have only just started to realize how the changing of the guard is leaving them behind, who have seen their turf transform to the point they can barely recognize it. Still, neither artist has ever simplistically romanticized that bygone milieu. Their characters fumble as they navigate a world rife with signs, secrets, and conspiracies, a California candied not with “identifiable cit[ies]” but with “grouping[s] of concepts,” where everyone and everything suggests “a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning,” per The Crying of Lot 49. That novel came out in April 1966, just a few months before Reagan was elected governor, promising to crack down on the “filthy speech movement” fueled by the student protests at Berkeley and to send “the welfare bums back to work.” The repression and censorship that would dominate Reagan-era California (and eventually all of the United States under his presidency) permeate Vineland and Inherent Vice, in which the actor-turned-politico serves as an omnipresent specter, a kind of daemon ex machina restoring fascism at home and abroad. A mood of chronic paranoia permeates Pynchon’s prose and Anderson’s cinema; what binds them isn’t just some autobiographical affair with Los Angeles but an interest in its sinister side: In the words of Inherent Vice’s Detective Lieutenant “Bigfoot” Bjornsen, “The dark forces that are always there just out of the sunlight.”"]
Jasechko, Scott, et al. "Rapid groundwater decline and some cases of recovery in aquifers globally." Nature (January 2024) ["Groundwater resources are vital to ecosystems and livelihoods. Excessive groundwater withdrawals can cause groundwater levels to decline, resulting in seawater intrusion, land subsidence, streamflow depletion and wells running dry. However, the global pace and prevalence of local groundwater declines are poorly constrained, because in situ groundwater levels have not been synthesized at the global scale. Here we analyse in situ groundwater-level trends for 170,000 monitoring wells and 1,693 aquifer systems in countries that encompass approximately 75% of global groundwater withdrawals. We show that rapid groundwater-level declines (>0.5 m year−1) are widespread in the twenty-first century, especially in dry regions with extensive croplands. Critically, we also show that groundwater-level declines have accelerated over the past four decades in 30% of the world’s regional aquifers. This widespread acceleration in groundwater-level deepening highlights an urgent need for more effective measures to address groundwater depletion. Our analysis also reveals specific cases in which depletion trends have reversed following policy changes, managed aquifer recharge and surface-water diversions, demonstrating the potential for depleted aquifer systems to recover."]
Johnson, Allan. "Literature as Occultism." Against Everyone #308 (November 25, 2025) ["... ALLAN JOHNSON Professor of English Literature at University of Surrey, meditation coach, and author of the excellent book, The Sacred Life of Modernist Literature: Immanence, Occultism, and the Making of the Modern World. In that book, Allan states: “The occult has always walked the perilous line between desiring a textual form while resisting the possibility that this form can ever be completely achieved.” One place we find the textual form of the occult is in literature - but I don’t mean that in the way that you think… One of my big frustrations with spiritual influencers who are online, have podcasts, write books and more is that most of them don’t seem to have a good grasp of art, but particularly literature. One reason why is that… well reading books that have occult forms usually take a lot of work. Lots of occultists, magicians, pagans do something like this: they read literature that has magical content and create metaphors and analogies that - all-too conveniently - mirror the lessons of their own esoteric view. And they reach for the easiest usual suspects: Lord of the Rings, Ursula K Le Guin, Star Wars, Paulo Coehlo, etc. But the location of occult and esoteric strength in literature is in its innovative forms and styles - in novelists who wrote in tensions between absence and presence, in multiple innovative structures and voices, in elliptical maneuvers and sentences that change their direction before you finish them. These forms were brought to us most prominently in modernist literature - in James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Kafka, and more. And it’s also found in poets like TS Elliot, Ezra Pound, and WB Yeats. In the works of modernist writers, the reader’s involvement is demanded to complete the text. They showed us that fiction itself is an occult endeavor - and that reading is a moral technology, maybe one of the only moral technologies. With literature, we meet the other mind, and we co-create reality through symbols, light, and imagination. Writers that ask us to meet them, to do as much in the reading as they do in the writing, bring us so far in our development. They are writers who initiate us with their works. Allan and I talk about all of this in depth. We also talk about Marianne Williamson, Wilhelm Reich, psychoanalysis, and more."]
Juengst, Eric and Daniel Moseley. "Human Enhancement." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (November 13, 2025) ['At first glance there does not seem to be anything philosophically problematic about human enhancement. Activities such as physical fitness routines, wearing eyeglasses, taking music lessons and meditation are routinely utilized for the goal of enhancing human capacities. But there are a cluster of debates in practical ethics, conventionally labeled as “the ethics of human enhancement”, that do raise philosophical questions. These debates include clinicians’ concerns about the limits of legitimate health care, parents’ worries about their reproductive and rearing obligations, and the fairness of competitive practices like sports and war, and the possibility of improving human moral agency itself. They also involve more general questions about distributive justice, science policy, and the public regulation of medical technologies. As usual in practical ethics, an adequate discussion of any specific debate under this heading quickly requires orientation to the science and the social and political practices of specific enhancement interventions. At each turn in these discussions, wide vistas of background philosophical topics also appear for exploration. Rather than providing a detailed account of this whole landscape, we trace a path of core concerns that winds through the current debates on the ethics of human enhancement, as a guide for those interested in exploring further."]
Kafer, Gary. "There is No A.I." Jump Cut #62 (Winter 2023 - 2024) [Review of Kate Crawford, The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021: "The first chapter, “Earth,” examines the mineral mining practices that underpin the construction of computational systems. In chapter two, “Labor,” Crawford examines the forms of workplace surveillance that enervate data systems—including digital pieceworkers, Amazon warehouses, and assembly lines—all of which subject the body to temporal management. "Data” is the subject of the third chapter, which tracks how datasets are built from harvesting personal information and transformed into pattern recognition models. Chapter four, “Classification,” focuses on how that data is used to construct taxonomies of social differences like race and gender within machine learning systems. Next, Crawford turns to “Affect,” recounting the history of scientific attempts to create universal mappings of facial expressions that now subtend the development of emotion detection systems by tech industries. The final chapter turns to the “State” to explore how the private AI industry is taking an active role in reshaping government activities, including policing and warfare. Crawford’s atlas concludes with a discussion of “Power” and the possibility for justice, which is followed by a brief coda exploring the role of “Space” as the ultimate frontier of AI’s imperial project."]
Lembke, Anna. "The Paradox of Pleasure." Hidden Brain (December 8, 2025) ["All of us think we know what addiction looks like. It’s the compulsive consumption of drugs, alcohol, or nicotine. But psychiatrist Anna Lembke argues that our conception of addiction is far too narrow — and that a broader understanding of addiction might help us to understand why so many people are anxious and depressed. This week, we revisit a 2023 episode that remains of the most popular in the history of our show. We’ll explore how and why humans are wired to pursue pleasure, and all the ways the modern world tempts us with addictive substances and behaviors."
Book:
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, by Anna Lembke, 2021.
Research:
Changes in the Global Burden of Depression from 1990 to 2017: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study, by Qingqing Liu et al., Journal of Psychiatric Research, 2020.
Changing World Happiness, by John F. Helliwell, Haifang Huang, and Shun Wang, World Happiness Report 2019, Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2019.
Cross-Sectional Comparison of the Epidemiology of DSM-5 Generalized Anxiety Disorder Across the Globe, by Ayelet Meron Ruscio et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2017.
Dopamine-Deficient Mice Are Severely Hypoactive, Adipsic, and Aphagic, by Qun-Yong Zhou and Richard D. Palmiter, Cell, 1995.
Changes in Depression Among Abstinent Alcoholics, by Sandra A. Brown and Marc A. Schuckit, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1988.]
Madoff, Ray. "How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy." This is Hell (November 11, 2025) [" You've got $50 trillion, you should be participating in the system the same as regular working Americans. I think it would be better just to bring the richest Americans into our regular income tax system, the way that all other Americans are in it, rather than coming up with special taxes that we say are specifically geared to the rich." Legal scholar Ray Madoff joins us to discuss her new book from the University of Chicago Press, The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy.]
Martel, J.F. "Bergson and Weird Philosophy: JF Martel on Time, Subjectivity, and Weirding Realism." Lepht Hand (November 2, 2025) ["Have you ever felt reality glitch, as though the weird was peeking through the cracks of time or the Real? In this episode of LEPHT HAND, JF Martel joins to explore how Henri Bergson’s concept of duration and Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming invite a radically weird subjectivity, one that consumes rhythms, intensities, and habits across time. We discuss how this non-linear conception of time doesn’t just solve problems but also introduces new ones: what does it mean to be a subject in perpetual flux, and is this mysticism, metaphysics, or simply reality hiding behind a theatre of representation?"]
Milanovic, Branko. "Why Economists Should Care About Inequality." Capitalisn't (November 6, 2025) ["Recently, Bethany and Luigi joined economist and wealth inequality expert Branko Milanovic in front of a live audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival to explore how capitalism, democracy, and income inequality interact. Together, the three discussed the pervasiveness of income inequality around the world, its connections with democracy and political stability, if the inequality that really matters is that between countries, and if capitalism and democracy aren't as intricately connected as we thought. As a scholar of China’s economic system, Milanovic discussed how much of the country’s success can even be attributed to capitalism. In the process, the three unpacked if capitalist societies, particularly in the West, are able to address the very inequality they have produced. Are there free-market mechanisms to correct for inequality or does there need to be government intervention? If income inequality poses a dire threat to democracy, what should capitalists do to preserve the institutions that enabled their wealth in the first place?" Branko Milanovic's Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War.]
Nayler, Ray. "The Mountain In The Sea author Ray Nayler - Hugo & Locus award-winner." Sentietism (1/17/26) ["Ray Nayler is a Hugo and Locus Award winning author. Born in Quebec and raised in California, he lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, and Kosovo as a Foreign Service officer, a Peace Corps volunteer, and an international development worker. Ray's first novel, The Mountain in the Sea won the Locus Award. It was a finalist for the Nebula Arthur C. Clarke, the LA Times Ray Bradbury Awards, and was named a London Times science fiction book of the year. Mountain was listed as one of the best science fiction books of all time by Esquire. Ray's novella The Tusks of Extinction won the 2025 Hugo Award, and was a finalist for the Nebula and Locus Awards. Ray's third book, Where the Axe is Buried, was published in April 2025. Ray's short stories have won the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, France's highest literary prize for science fiction, the Clarkesworld Readers' poll, the Asimov's Readers' Award, the Bifrost readers' award, and have been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Award." Description of The Mountain in the Sea: "Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future. The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed off the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where a species of octopus has been discovered that may have developed its own language and culture. The marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them. She travels to the islands to join DIANIMA’s team: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first (and possibly last) android. The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extra-human intelligence. As Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves. But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. Or what they might do about it. A near-future thriller, a meditation on the nature of consciousness, and an eco-logical call to arms, Ray Nayler’s dazzling literary debut The Mountain in the Sea is a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy."]
Rimbaud, Penny."This is Penny Rimbaud - Part One." Bureau of Lost Culture (October 29, 2025) ["Penny Rimbaud , who has spent more than half a century living the ideals that most of us only talk about, has been described as an activist philosopher, an anarchist, a Zen Buddhist. Though he would likely not recognise those descriptions, he is certainly a poet, a musician, an artist. Born Jeremy John Ratter in 1943, in the late 1960s, together with artist Gee Vaucher, he founded Dial House, an open community and creative refuge in rural Essex. It became both a home and a hub — a living experiment in anarchism, art, and radical living, from which emerged Crass, a band that tore apart punk’s nihilism and replaced it with a fierce moral energy: anti-war, anti-sexism, anti-consumerism — but pro-peace, pro-freedom, and defiantly DIY. Their black-and-white graphics, polemical lyrics, and uncompromising stance made them one of the most influential and challenging acts of their time. When Crass disbanded in 1984, Penny kept on creating, often with Gee. He became a prolific poet, writer, and spoken-word performer, continuing to explore themes of love, pacifism, and spiritual autonomy. Now in his eighties, he still lives and works at Dial House — still questioning authority, still seeking truth through art and language. We range back and forth across Penny's personal history and his thoughts on culture, capitalism, art and the very notion of the self. In his own words: “There is no authority but yourself.”"]
Sy, Lloyd Alimboyao. "What Future for Native Sovereignty?" Public Books (December 3, 2025) ["Five years ago, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which Robert J. Miller (Eastern Shawnee Tribe) and Torey Dolan (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) call “likely the most significant Indian law case in well over 100 years.” McGirt affirmed that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s reservation had never been disestablished, meaning much of eastern Oklahoma remains tribal land. The ruling was celebrated for restoring treaty promises and affirming the legal endurance of tribal sovereignty after centuries of settler encroachment and legal erasure. But it has also ushered in a new era of jurisdictional entanglement: tribal governments were suddenly tasked with exercising criminal jurisdiction over vast swaths of land—including serious felony cases involving Native defendants—without the infrastructure, legal human power, or federal funding necessary to match state prosecutorial capacity. For many tribes, the 2020 decision poses a paradox: sovereignty is reaffirmed, but so too are the burdens of governance under inequitable conditions. That’s why there’s now a major debate in contemporary Indigenous political theory, asking whether sovereignty can still serve as a radical framework, or whether it has already been co-opted by the settler state. Especially in the aftermath of McGirt, a pivotal question for Indigenous political leaders is how to ensure that Indigenous sovereignty does not calcify into the same punitive logics, bureaucratic violence, and elite self-perpetuation that have long defined colonial rule. That question of sovereignty is answered by Jon Hickey’s 2025 novel Big Chief, which considers how Native self-determination navigates the same institutional forms that have long suppressed it. Sovereignty is the problem of Big Chief, but to be sure, Hickey, an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, refuses to add any simple buzz to that too-often-essentialized word. As its front-cover blurb by David Heska Wanbli Weiden puts it, Big Chief may be “the great Native American political novel,” but in the process it complicates some of the rudimentary political aims of Native peoples today."]
Tobin, Vera, et al. "Spoiler Alert! The Psychology Of Surprise Endings." Hidden Brain (December 3, 2018) ["Writers and filmmakers hoping to hoodwink their fans with plot twists have long known what cognitive scientists know: All of us have blind spots in the way we assess the world. We get distracted. We forget how we know things. We see patterns that aren't there. Because these blind spots are wired into the brain, they act in ways that are predictable — so predictable that storytellers from Sophocles to M. Night Shyamalan have used them to lead us astray. In recent years, some scientists have begun to ask, can stories serve as a kind of brain scan? If a plot twist works by exploiting our biases and mental shortcuts, can observing the mechanics of a good story reveal something important about the contours of the mind?" 'Stories are a kind of magic trick," says cognitive scientist Vera Tobin. "When we dissect them, we can discover very, very reliable aspects of those tricks that turn out to be important clues about the way that people think.'"]
Torres-Gonzalez, Erick. "Za’atar: From Ancient Texts to Modern Conflict." JSTOR Daily (January 7, 2026) ["Some flavors whisper of home, speaking a language rooted in place and memory. For those living in the Levant, the slightly bitter and spicy notes of za’atar have been a symbol of heritage, culture, and resilience for centuries: an indispensable herb in tenth-century cookbooks, the heart of a rich communal harvesting, and the driver of poetic emotion. In these retellings, the plant’s name, transformed through time and languages, has acted as a passport allowing the herb to cross the boundaries of geography, culture, and identity, and with that acquire new meanings: Syrian oregano, Lebanese thyme, biblical hyssop, or, in Linnaean terms, Origanum syriacum. Today, in its dried and ground form, za’atar is best known as the central ingredient in the spice mix that has come to represent Palestinian cuisine worldwide. This herbaceous perennial grows abundantly in the rocky terrain of the Eastern Mediterranean and Sinai Peninsula, standing only about a meter tall, with fuzzy, spear-like leaves growing on hairy, square-shaped stems."]
West, Stephen. "The Frankfurt School (Part 6) - Art As a Tool for Liberation." Philosophize This (December 2, 2017) ["This episode explores why the Frankfurt School—particularly Herbert Marcuse—placed such importance on art and aesthetics in their critique of capitalist society. Rather than dismissing art as irrelevant during times of systemic repression, Marcuse argues that it holds unique power to transform how people see themselves and their place in the world. True liberation, he believes, cannot come through force or impulsive revolution but through a gradual shift in class consciousness, which begins by altering people’s subjectivity—their internalized worldview shaped by culture and media. The culture industry reinforces passive, oversimplified perspectives that prevent deep reflection or awareness of systemic issues. In contrast, great works of art can disrupt these ingrained views and offer glimpses of alternative realities, making them powerful tools for awakening and resistance. However, Marcuse cautions that even art can be co-opted by capitalism, turned into mere commodities unless paired with intentional action—praxis. Liberation, then, requires a balance of theory and praxis, guided by compassion, strategy, and a refusal to reduce others to enemies within the system they never chose.
Further Reading:
The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics by Herbert Marcuse (1978)
Herbert Marcuse: An Aesthetics of Liberation by Malcolm Miles (2011)
Art and Liberation: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, Volume 4 by Herbert Marcuse (2017)]
Tobin, Vera, et al. "Spoiler Alert! The Psychology Of Surprise Endings." Hidden Brain (December 3, 2018) ["Writers and filmmakers hoping to hoodwink their fans with plot twists have long known what cognitive scientists know: All of us have blind spots in the way we assess the world. We get distracted. We forget how we know things. We see patterns that aren't there. Because these blind spots are wired into the brain, they act in ways that are predictable — so predictable that storytellers from Sophocles to M. Night Shyamalan have used them to lead us astray. In recent years, some scientists have begun to ask, can stories serve as a kind of brain scan? If a plot twist works by exploiting our biases and mental shortcuts, can observing the mechanics of a good story reveal something important about the contours of the mind?" 'Stories are a kind of magic trick," says cognitive scientist Vera Tobin. "When we dissect them, we can discover very, very reliable aspects of those tricks that turn out to be important clues about the way that people think.'"]
Torres-Gonzalez, Erick. "Za’atar: From Ancient Texts to Modern Conflict." JSTOR Daily (January 7, 2026) ["Some flavors whisper of home, speaking a language rooted in place and memory. For those living in the Levant, the slightly bitter and spicy notes of za’atar have been a symbol of heritage, culture, and resilience for centuries: an indispensable herb in tenth-century cookbooks, the heart of a rich communal harvesting, and the driver of poetic emotion. In these retellings, the plant’s name, transformed through time and languages, has acted as a passport allowing the herb to cross the boundaries of geography, culture, and identity, and with that acquire new meanings: Syrian oregano, Lebanese thyme, biblical hyssop, or, in Linnaean terms, Origanum syriacum. Today, in its dried and ground form, za’atar is best known as the central ingredient in the spice mix that has come to represent Palestinian cuisine worldwide. This herbaceous perennial grows abundantly in the rocky terrain of the Eastern Mediterranean and Sinai Peninsula, standing only about a meter tall, with fuzzy, spear-like leaves growing on hairy, square-shaped stems."]
West, Stephen. "The Frankfurt School (Part 6) - Art As a Tool for Liberation." Philosophize This (December 2, 2017) ["This episode explores why the Frankfurt School—particularly Herbert Marcuse—placed such importance on art and aesthetics in their critique of capitalist society. Rather than dismissing art as irrelevant during times of systemic repression, Marcuse argues that it holds unique power to transform how people see themselves and their place in the world. True liberation, he believes, cannot come through force or impulsive revolution but through a gradual shift in class consciousness, which begins by altering people’s subjectivity—their internalized worldview shaped by culture and media. The culture industry reinforces passive, oversimplified perspectives that prevent deep reflection or awareness of systemic issues. In contrast, great works of art can disrupt these ingrained views and offer glimpses of alternative realities, making them powerful tools for awakening and resistance. However, Marcuse cautions that even art can be co-opted by capitalism, turned into mere commodities unless paired with intentional action—praxis. Liberation, then, requires a balance of theory and praxis, guided by compassion, strategy, and a refusal to reduce others to enemies within the system they never chose.
Further Reading:
The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics by Herbert Marcuse (1978)
Herbert Marcuse: An Aesthetics of Liberation by Malcolm Miles (2011)
Art and Liberation: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, Volume 4 by Herbert Marcuse (2017)]
---. "Varieties of Religion Today (Charles Taylor)." Philosophize This! #240 (November 8, 2025) ["Today we talk more about the work of Charles Taylor and his book The Varieties of Religion Today. We look at different answers to a classic question around religious belief. The sociological and structural role that religion plays at any given point in history. Paleo, Neo and Post Durkheim versions of religious society. What religion becomes in the age of authenticity we live in. We paint a picture of the very unique spiritual predicament the modern person has to navigate."]
Zahavi, Dan. "Togetherness." Overthink (November 4, 2025) ["Can we ever be truly alone? In episode 146 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk with philosopher Dan Zahavi about his book, Being We: Phenomenological Contributions to Social Ontology. They discuss how the increase in communication through screens has shifted what it means to be together, the decline of social bonds in political life, and what phenomenological understandings of empathy tell us about being together. How do dyadic relationships such as romantic love and friendship shape our identities? Does there need to be a conception of the self that precedes sociality? What are the different types of "we"?"
Works discussed:
Alison Gopnik, The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life
Ivan Leudar and Philip Thomas, Voices of Reason, Voices of Insanity
Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Gerda Walther, Toward an Ontology of Social Communities
Dan Zahavi, Being We: Phenomenological Contributions to Social Ontology]
Zahavi, Dan. "Togetherness." Overthink (November 4, 2025) ["Can we ever be truly alone? In episode 146 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk with philosopher Dan Zahavi about his book, Being We: Phenomenological Contributions to Social Ontology. They discuss how the increase in communication through screens has shifted what it means to be together, the decline of social bonds in political life, and what phenomenological understandings of empathy tell us about being together. How do dyadic relationships such as romantic love and friendship shape our identities? Does there need to be a conception of the self that precedes sociality? What are the different types of "we"?"
Works discussed:
Alison Gopnik, The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life
Ivan Leudar and Philip Thomas, Voices of Reason, Voices of Insanity
Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Gerda Walther, Toward an Ontology of Social Communities
Dan Zahavi, Being We: Phenomenological Contributions to Social Ontology]
