The tragedy of the modern university
Jordan Peterson has proposed the creation of an alternative to the modern university that offers free…
Bureaucratic utopianism
Bureaucracy is not meant to be Utopian. After all, is not bureaucracy the home of the…
On the history and meaning of the eight hour day
The story I told in this article still has resonance for me. It was a story about how, even in the apparently material conditions that defined work and industrial conflict, the meaning of events were inseparable from the striving for recognition and the webs of significance that we, culture-making beings, weave through the time of our lives.
The collapsing new buildings of government
“In truth, the problem of declining trust in political institutions, is better conceived as the collapse of authority of the…
Cultural fragmentation and the collapse of authority in Western democracies
During the week I was discussing with a young colleague at work the preparation of a…
Cantos from a cage
What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross What thou…
Axel’s Castle, a mirror and an encyclopaedia
When I was about fifteen, I found Edmund Wilson’s Axel’s Castle in a library. It was…
A thousand thanks
Some time in the last couple of weeks the counter on my wordpress visitor stats clocked…
Fragments on tradition
Today’s cultures are both disintegrating and proliferating. Any writer has to hand the near infinite profusion…
The reenchantment of the world
This morning I feel stuck for words. A heat wave has exhausted me, and the end…