Podcast #12 – Towards the Society of Islands
The latest episode of The Burning Archive Podcast is out and available on all the usual platforms, including Apple and Spotify. In this episode of The Burning Archive, I continue my history of our times,…
Tag: society
Podcast #11 – Social progress and social fragmentation
The latest episode of The Burning Archive Podcast is out and available on all the usual platforms, including Apple and Spotify. In this episode of The Burning Archive, Jeff Rich explores the fourth large theme…
The Burning Archive Podcast #10 – The Parallel Polis and the Power of the Powerless
The latest episode of The Burning Archive Podcast is out and available on all the usual platforms, including Apple and Spotify. When faced with cultural decay and ruined institutions, what…
America’s fate: civil war, fragmentation or collapse?
Today after the distressing events and death in the Capitol building of Washington DC that interrupted the process of confirming electoral college votes, I am reposting this piece from five…
Cultural fragmentation and the collapse of authority in Western democracies
My repost today comes from 22 April 2018, and seems relevant to the difficulties we are experiencing in our distressed republics today. I also posted something of a follow-up post…
Captain Ahab and Lockdown in Melbourne
Historians (and I am one) will search for cultural archetypes that explain the strange delusions of power that have inflicted a captivity on the citizens of Melbourne and Victoria. In…
Anomie Today and Cultural Decay
“The former gods are growing old or dying, and others have not been born…. A day will come when our societies once again will know hours of creative effervescence during…
America’s fate: civil war, fragmentation or collapse?
There is increasing talk of a looming civil war in America. There has even been a website – anewcivilwar.com – established to track the increasing speculation on civil war by…
Reflections on America in flames
The descent of the American Republic into one of the outer circles of hell is occurring before our eyes. Within a week an outrageous case of police brutality, enclosed within…
Public Health Rulez, OK?
The psychology of power is enigmatic and poisonous, and it infects more than just the ruthless and the mercenary. Principled men and women of medicine succumb, even at their moment…
On the virtue of not knowing (WordPress anniversary repost)
Today I am posting the last (for now) of my reposts from earlier, retired blogs. This post comes from 2010 and is a reflection on Vaclav Havel’s thought, then still…
On the rescue of society
Writing in the New York Times (Jan 10 2019), David Brooks proposes the “remoralization of the market” as the correct response to economic populism. In an America besieged by Trumpism and Never-Trumpism, by…
