essays, notes and poetry against cultural decay
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…
2020 has taught us through bitter experience that our societies are not vaccinated against totalitarianism, and certainly not the mutant strain of “soft totalitarianism” described in Rod Dreher’s Live Not…
And if and when Trump is no longer President, all the ills of political system can no longer be blamed on Trump. For four years now – in America but…
During the week the High Court of Australia passed judgement on a case in which a public servant was sacked for an anonymous tweet, critical of government but made in…
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…
As I look around the world at the state of politics, I conclude that our democratic republics are in distress. This judgment is not a mere oppositional response to Donald…
“Who among us can know what may seem today to be marginal graphomania might not one day appear to our descendants as the most substantial thing written in our time?…
I. Culture forms chaotically from spirit. Havel begins his essay, or talk, “Six asides about Culture” with some speculation that tomorrow he might write his best ever literary work, or…
