My new article, “When Monsters Walk Among Us,” which argues that monsters are neither born outside of history nor reducible to particular individuals. They are produced by societies, institutions, and power that make the intolerable appear ordinary.https://t.co/eGXcLGSQcE— Henry A. Giroux (@HenryGiroux) September 18, 2026
When Monsters Walk Among Us
More than four decades ago, the Greek composer and public intellectual Manos Hadjidakis issued a warning that now reads less like a reflection on fascism than a prophecy of our own time. The greatest danger, he suggested, comes when we grow accustomed to the monster, when its presence no longer shocks the conscience and its violence begins to merge with the routines of everyday life. Tolerance does not diminish the monster; it multiplies the conditions that allow it to flourish, strengthening its presence in public life until monstrosity itself acquires the authority to govern. In this instance, the collapse of conscience is inseparable from the uncoupling of “belief from judgment, conviction from action.”
The Monster Discloses Himself
There is a world within the world, and that world is not, as it is for the Marxist, a metaphor. It’s where the lizard people meet.
Choose Your Own Monster
Introducing Monstrous Times, the magazine of strange rules
Six Collisions for Protocol Monsters
Welcome to Monstrous Times, the magazine of strange rules fiction
the Long 90s are Over
I Wanted to Create “The Most Human Gathering”—and Created a Monster
What my failed attempt at curation says about the next “intelligence explosion” “The word for world is forest“ – Ursula K. Le Guin With everyone now a coder, you’d think this would be a good time for curators like me.
Pluralistic: By all means, tread on those people (26 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Just as Martin Niemöller's "First They Came" has become our framework for understanding the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany, so, too is Wilhoit's Law the best way to understand America's decline into fascism:
Fascist femboys, autogynephilia, and flattering narratives
Among those who believe [autogynephilia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchard'stranssexualismtypology) is real and the primary explanation for many or mo...
Supernatural explanations across 114 societies are more common for natural than social phenomena
Humans across the globe use supernatural beliefs to explain the world around them. This article explores whether cultural groups invoke the supernatural more to explain natural phenomena (for example, storms, disease outbreaks) or social phenomena (for example, murder, warfare). Quantitative analysis of ethnographic text across 114 geographically and culturally diverse societies found that supernatural explanations are more prevalent for natural than for social phenomena, consistent with theories that ground the origin of religious belief in a human tendency to perceive intent and agency in the natural world. Despite the dominance of supernatural explanations of natural phenomena, supernatural explanations of social phenomena were especially prevalent in urbanized societies with more socially complex and anonymous groups. Our results show how people use supernatural beliefs as explanatory tools in non-industrial societies, and how these applications vary across small-scale communities versus large and urbanized groups.
The Authoritarian Personality
This hugely influential study on the psychology of authoritarianism was written in answer to Hitler’s Germany—and now rings more relevant than ever as fascism and anti-Semitism sweep across America.What makes a fascist? Are there character traits that make someone more likely to vote for the far right? The Authoritarian Personality is not only one of the most significant works of social psychology ever written, it also marks a milestone in the development of Adorno’s thought, showing him grappling with the problem of fascism and the reasons for Europe’s turn to reaction. Over half a century later, and with the rise of right-wing populism and the reemergence of the far-right in recent years, this hugely influential study remains as insightful and relevant as ever.This new edition includes an introduction by Frankfurt School scholar Peter E. Gordon and contains the first-ever publication of Adorno’s subsequent critical notes on the project.“Adorno and his colleagues could easily have been describing Alex Jones’s paranoid InfoWars rants or the racist views expressed by many Trump supporters.” —New York Times
Shoggoths amongst us
What Lovecraft's monsters _actually_ tell us about Large Language Models
Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution | Meaningness
How muggles and sociopaths invade and undermine creative subcultures; and how to stop them.
