Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘democracy’

I had been avoiding the Whitehead Research Project‘s monthly reading groups because of conflicts with other scheduled activities, but today I joined. The reading was a short, unpublished manuscript somewhat misleadingly titled “Freedom and Order,” as it’s mostly about humor, wit, and imagination. Now I understand why I’ve always been put off by, and a […]

Read Full Post »

Trump’s parting electoral tantrum puts the exclamation mark on the fundamental flaw of democracy that his presidency has revealed: that a poorly informed electorate can willingly choose its own demise (even as it recites platitudes to the contrary). Two institutions are most implicated in this flaw: public education and the mass media. In well functioning […]

Read Full Post »

See how far you follow my line of thinking here: (1) Democracy (institutional and not just majoritarian/representational) is better than the alternatives. Let’s live with it (and defend it). (2) Democracy as practiced in the U.S. today is partial, compromised, and somewhat muzzled, but still better than the alternatives. Let’s fix it up. (3) Democracy, […]

Read Full Post »

Based on its title and on the snippets I saw being quoted, I fully expected to dislike Lee Jones’ article “Charlottesville and the Politics of Left Hysteria,” posted a few days ago at The Current Moment. Instead, I’ve found it nuanced, cogent, and well worth reading. I myself have tried to broach this topic of the […]

Read Full Post »

Here’s the abstract I’ve just sent in for the keynote I’ll be giving at the Reassembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource conference in Oslo in February:

Read Full Post »

The responses to the final COP-15 “deal” from the environmental and social justice communities seem, at this point, to be largely negative. It’s a start, some acknowledge, but it’s pretty late to be starting, and it’s really pretty vacuous — a lost opportunity. My last post tried to put a positive spin on things by arguing that the events in Copenhagen reflect the tension between two models of democracy, and that there is hope for the future in the very crystallization of the second model. Let me expand on that a little.

Read Full Post »

Skip to toolbar