The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . God’s oppressed children Pankaj Mishra, New York Review of Books, 21 December 2017 Many Indian houses still have a simple pit toilet, which consists of a large hole in the floor. The feces are collected at night by ‘manual scavengers,’ who, Sujatha Gidla writes in Ants Among Elephants, ‘carry away human shit’ and […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . This poisonous cult of personality Pankaj Mishra, NYR Daily, 1 December 2017 Donald Trump’s election last year exposed an insidious politics of celebrity, one in which a redemptive personality is projected high above the slow toil of political parties and movements. As his latest tweets about Muslims confirm, this post-political figure seeks, […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . How Britain did Gaddafi’s dirty work Ian Cobain, Guardian, 9 November 2017 As the CIA and MI6 built relationships with Libya, the two agencies assisted Libyan spies in the kidnapping of Gaddafi’s enemies. Two leading figures in the Libyan opposition who had fled the country were kidnapped, one from Hong Kong, one from […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Catalonia and European democracy Richard Youngs, Carnegie Europe, 6 October 2017 The EU clearly prioritizes the rule of law over participative democracy. The union ostensibly aspires to transcend traditional concepts of national sovereignty, yet it is a club of national governments. This helps account for the EU’s tepid response to the brutality of […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . European priorities, Libya realities Daniel Howden, Refugees Deeply Quarterly, October 2017 The horrific abuses suffered inside Libya’s migrant prisons range from rape and torture to forced labor. The IOM and UNHCR have limited access to the detention centers and must apply in writing before visiting – they cannot conduct spot inspections. The […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Truth? It’s not just about the facts Julian Baginni, Times Literary Supplement, 21 September 2017 Truth is rarely, if ever, a simple matter of getting the facts straight. History, for example, certainly demands factual accuracy but that in itself is not enough. There is also the question of which facts are made […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. A tragedy of manners Angela Nagle, The Baffler, September 2017 Comments on the bad manners of Donald Trump have come from a wide array of sources, all along the political spectrum. British Burkean conservative Peter Hitchens called him ‘an oaf and a yahoo who has gravely damaged the standards of public life.’ The […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . The fake news fallacy Adrian Chen, New Yorker, 4 September 2017 Not so very long ago, it was thought that the tension between commercial pressure and the public interest would be one of the many things made obsolete by the Internet. In the mid-aughts, during the height of the Web 2.0 boom, […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Goodbye Pepe Angela Nagle, The Baffler, 15 August 2017 At a tragic moment like this, few will want to take a step back and ask the genuinely difficult questions. What is it about the alt-right that has captured the imagination of so many young people and at least intrigued a great many […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Why I left immigration law Jawziya F Zaman, Dissent, 12 July 2017 Our narratives about the rest of the world consist of interchangeable anecdotes of suffering, scarcity, and repression. There’s no room for complexity here, and nuance only muddles the case. We tell ourselves that what we describe on paper is just […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . How climate scepticism turned into something more dangerous David Runciman, Guardian, 7 July 2017 Post-truth politics also poses a problem for scepticism. A healthy democracy needs to leave plenty of room for doubt. There are lots of good reasons to be doubtful about what the reality of climate change will entail: though […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

A bumper-edition of my regular collection of recent essays and stories from around the web worth plucking out to be re-read. . Getting in and out Zadie Smith, Harper’s, July 2017 We have been warned not to get under one another’s skin, to keep our distance. But Jordan Peele’s horror-fantasy – in which we are inside one another’s skin and intimately involved in one another’s suffering – is neither a horror nor a fantasy. It is a fact of our experience. […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . How can we be? Time Crane, Times Literary Supplement, 24 May 2017 We need another starting point. Rather than ask the question, ‘one substance or two?’ we should ask ourselves what we actually know about our psychological or mental lives, and what we know about how they are related to our bodies. […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Academe’s poisonous call out culture Suzanna Danute Walters, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 May 2017 As a feminist journal editor, I am not only shocked by the policing move of the signatories and their weak, vague, and easily refutable argument. I am astonished by the immediate and hyperbolic apology by the associate […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . What the war on terror looks like Loulouwa al-Rachid & Peter Harling, Synaps, 27 March 2017 Clausewitz famously described war as the continuation of politics by other means. Iraq, however, challenges this definition, given the triumph of petty short-termism over any coherent political endgame. All players involved seem to be wagering that […]

Categories: Pandaemonium