The Two Body Problem

The Political and Media Myopia That Has Paralysed Keir Starmer's Government

Distorted and biased media coverage and short-sighted politics in Westminster have both prevented Starmer's Government from reaching its potential, argues Professor Chris Painter

The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry

Allusions to the “problem of metropolitan government” are often made in characterizing the difficulties supposed to arise because a metropolitan region is a legal non-entity. From this point of view, the people of a metropolitan region have no general instrumentality of government available to deal directly with the range of problems which they share in common. Rather there is a multiplicity of federal and state governmental agencies, counties, cities, and special districts that govern within a metropolitan region.This view assumes that the multiplicity of political units in a metropolitan area is essentially a pathological phenomenon. The diagnosis asserts that there are too many governments and not enough government. The symptoms are described as “duplication of functions” and “overlapping jurisdictions.” Autonomous units of government, acting in their own behalf, are considered incapable of resolving the diverse problems of the wider metropolitan community. The political topography of the metropolis is called a “crazy-quilt pattern” and its organization is said to be an “organized chaos.” The prescription is reorganization into larger units—to provide “a general metropolitan framework” for gathering up the various functions of government. A political system with a single dominant center for making decisions is viewed as the ideal model for the organization of metropolitan government. “Gargantua” is one name for it.

Consciousness as a Gödel sentence in the language of science

Why the Hard Problem (might be) so Hard

The Standpoint of Heimatlosigskeit and the Planet

Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, it has become impossible to comprehend the world solely through the lens of Hegel’s Berlin or Kojève’s Paris—even as nation-states continue to wrestle with their growing obsolescence. The planetary condition of human existence has also intensified a form of nihilism rooted in modernity: geographically through globalization, and cosmically through thermodynamics. If, in the twentieth century, reactionary politics sought to “overcome modernity” by returning to a notion of homeland (Heimat), the twenty-first century calls for a renewed framework—one that begins, perhaps, from the standpoint of Heimatlosigkeit.

The Standpoint of Heimatlosigskeit and the Planet

Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, it has become impossible to comprehend the world solely through the lens of Hegel’s Berlin or Kojève’s Paris—even as nation-states continue to wrestle with their growing obsolescence. The planetary condition of human existence has also intensified a form of nihilism rooted in modernity: geographically through globalization, and cosmically through thermodynamics. If, in the twentieth century, reactionary politics sought to “overcome modernity” by returning to a notion of homeland (Heimat), the twenty-first century calls for a renewed framework—one that begins, perhaps, from the standpoint of Heimatlosigkeit.

Polytunity - The Ideas Letter

“Polycrisis” has become a ubiquitous descriptor for the multisector, intersecting problems afflicting the world—but the term masks the systemic nature of these crises and overwhelmingly reflects Eurocentric voices, priorities, and…

Keir Starmer to stand down as MP to focus on world affairs

Former PM says it is right time to go, which will trigger byelection that Greens’ Zack Polanski could target

The Commons Explained in 15 Minutes | David Bollier

Andy Burnham will be Britain’s seventh leader in a decade. Can he buck the trend? | CNN

Andy Burnham has been confirmed as the new leader of Britain’s governing Labour Party and will become the country’s seventh prime minister in a decade of extraordinary political instability when he succeeds Keir Starmer on Monday.

The Daily Planet #118: On Contradiction - The Daily Planet

The Human Condition: Second Edition

A classic work of political thought, more relevant today than ever The twenty-first century has seen a resurgence of interest in the political thinker Hannah Arendt, “the theorist of beginnings,” whose work probes the logics underlying unexpected transformations—from totalitarianism to revolution. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then—diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions—continue to confront us today. This new edition, published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of its original publication, contains Margaret Canovan’s 1998 introduction and a new foreword by Danielle Allen. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.

There Is No ‘Hard Problem Of Consciousness’

Consciousness is not separate from the physical world — our “soul” is of the same nature as our body and any other phenomenon of the world.

The silences of constitutions

Abstract. Glossing a passage from Benjamin Constant’s Reflections on Constitutions, this article first assesses the roles performed by silences, gaps, and

Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, …

James Scott taught us what's wrong with seeing like a s…