Ideology, Subjectivity and the Unconscious: The Ignorance of Chicken, or, Who Believes What Today?

Slavoj Zizek, a philosopher and psychoanalyst, speaks on the topic of ideology, religion, atheism, subjectivity, and the unconscious mind. You can listen to this lecture through any of the means provided below – playing the audio or clicking on the link.

Link: The University of Chicago >>

Deindividuation and Attrocities

Jon Hanson and Michael McCann post at The Situationist:
Phil Zimbardo, in his great book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, describes “how a simple change in one’s external appearance can trigger dramatic changes in overt behavior.” The term of art is “deindividuation,” and the evidence for its powerful effects is as strong [...]

The Fictitious Commodity

Andy Cumbers writes in Variant:
“The question is not how men and women can be fitted to the needs of the system – but how the system can be fitted to the needs of men and women.”
When Tony Benn, Minister for Industry, turned the valve to allow the first oil from the North Sea to come [...]

Muslims Ignored Social Science, Not Science

Soroor Ahmed presents his theory, with examples from history, that Muslims lost their temporal power first, then their grip over science. He further argues that science is important but social sciences are more important. The article is available at Radiance Viewsweekly.
Read the complete text >>

Blindness and Seeing

Ursula K. Le Guin reviews Jose Saramago’s book, Seeing. The review was first publised by The Guardian:
Some years ago a reliable friend told me I should read José Saramago’s Blindness. Faced with pages of run-on sentences and unparagraphed dialogue without quotation marks, I soon quit, snarling about literary affectations. Later I tried again, went further, [...]

Reinventing Democracy

Jose Saramago writes in Le Monde Diplomatique (2004):
So while the rich may legitimately participate in the democratic government of the polis, the unchallengeable principle of proportionality means they will always be in the minority. Aris totle was right in one respect: the rich have never been more numerous than the poor. Despite that, they have [...]

Adaptation and the Economy

Arnold Kling writes in TCSDaily:
In textbooks, economics is often defined as the study of the allocation of scarce resources among competing ends. Douglass North says that adaptation is more important than allocation.
Textbook economics looks at how policies affect the allocation of resources. For example, taking a country that was closed to other nations and opening [...]

Cerámica de Cuyo: A Profile of Worker Control in Argentina

Benjamin Dangl writes on ZNet:
In the worn out meeting room of worker-run Cerámica de Cuyo, Manuel Rojas runs a rough hand over his face. The mechanic recalls forming the cooperative after the company boss fired the workers in 2000: “We didn’t have any choice. If we didn’t take over the factory we would all be [...]

Richard Swinburne’s Is There a God?

Richard Dawkins reviews Swinburne’s book, Is there a God. The following is published in Think:
In this review of Richard Swinburne’s Is There a God? (which contains the same two arguments from design that may be found in his article in issue one of Think), Richard Dawkins admires Swinburne’s clarity but is unconvinced by his arguments. [...]

Mapping an Occupation

I found an interactive map of the West Bank while browsing through Conflict Blotter. Hosted by The Guardian, the site maps the occupation of the West Bank, including Israeli settlements, the barrier wall, and roads in the west bank restricted to Palestinians.
View the map >>