Claim: "Rousseauianism's plateauing obsequiously" is the only proposition in the English language that contains both (1) a truth (2) and four consecutive vowels in every word that it's made up of.

I just finished Karin Hausen's 1976 article "Die Polarisierung der 'Geschlechtscharaktere': Eine Spiegelung der Dissoziation von Erwerbs- und Familienleben". Is anyone aware of an English translation? It's influential in the German context, yet fairly unknown beyond that.

Power phrases to impress your colleagues at the next post-work aperitivo

Really nice to see this piece published (co-authored with the great @yvette-wang.bsky.social). It's basically an endorsement of counter-paradigmatic research disguised as a symposium report ;-) exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/ex...

Within ten years, England lost close to 75% of people identifying as "English-only" and almost tripled the percentage of "British-only" – simply because the census changed the order of these options. Sounds sus. Why wouldn't the numbers track (though potentially exaggerate) a real shift?

From the interstices between workweek and weekend: "Thought arose in the course of the liberation from terrible nature (...). Pleasure is nature's revenge. In pleasure, human beings divest themselves from thought, escape from civilisation." (Adorno/Horkheimer, DoE, Stanford 2008, p. 82)

Just a local newspaper using "on every corner" on every corner. "Ganter Beer is on every corner in Freiburg. And that's exactly what the brewery celebrates, with the slogan 'Drink local on every corner' for a campaign that celebrates local Ganter on every corner."

The FT dips a toe in the dialectic of enlightenment: "In ever scarier times, it is soothing to believe that a secret plan is at work, even if it is a distasteful plan. ... liberal societies struggle to understand — or even to credit the existence of — irrational actors." on.ft.com/4i6islx

On 1 April, the White House celebrated the beginning of the "Financial Literacy Month". Is this all just the punch line of a very elaborate practical joke?

Horkheimer on the politics of galactic ambitions in late capitalism: (1/2) "[M]an's avidity to extend his power in two infinities, the microcosm and the universe, does not arise directly from his own nature, but from the structure of society." (Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, 1947/1974, p. 74)

(1/3) Good news, critical theorists! You might make it onto the syllabus of Christopher Rufo's seminar on the decline of Western civ "Last question: You’re in charge of a curriculum, and you have to include one author you are opposed to ... Who do you pick? Rufo: Without a doubt, Herbert Marcuse."

The webform of a large German funding body asks me to add "last-name prefixes". Among the options are: - "Baron vom" - "Ritter von" - "dell'Isola" - "L'Homme" and of course - "Freiherr v.u.z." I'm feeling seen, though I'm mildly displeased that it won't allow me to specify the acreage of my estate

Two days to go!

Cheered myself up by looking at recent polling for the Hungarian election next year.

Among those who did not cast a ballot in Germany's previous federal election, close to a majority voted for the hard-right: 48% AfD 24% CDU 11% BSW 8% Left 7% SPD 3% Greens Liberal democracy depends on passive disillusionment.

🧵 This is my first federal election in Germany. Having lived in Austria and the UK, I'm used to dumb campaign posters, but the Germans really take it to a new level. Here are my top 5 displays of election dadaism:

Horkheimer often talks about the "immediatisation" of social relations under authoritarianism (eg "When power does not have to take the detour via the domestic market, intellectual mediations, such as law, disappear".) Does he elaborate on the *concept* of mediation anywhere? 🙏 for any pointers

@Austria: you know things are *bad* when the best political news that's come out of the country in several months is that the coalition talks have finally broken down.

Addendum: Carl Schmitt stole the title of "Legality and Legitimacy" from Otto Kirchheimer, whose "Legalität und Legitimität" was published some weeks before Schmitt's. In 1933, Kirchheimer (with Nathan Leites) published a rejection of Schmitt's book, highlighting its authoritarian implications

I was hoping we could wait a little longer before revisiting Carl Schmitt's "Legality and Legitimacy"

Musk "should get therapy", Andreessen can't "jog 10 feet", Zuckerberg "is such a beta", Trump "wants nothing more than have the NYT love him"... The flaw of the ad hominem critique is that it unintentionally buys into the deluded story of the narcissist: what makes him important is his personality

I'd say the call for concretes is closing in 3 weeks but that would be too corny.

Do hills in Freiburg just... vanish? "Loretto Street – named after the former Loretto Hill, once the 'Slier Hill'"

My hunch is that the point of all these executive actions that are legally "unclear", "illegal", or "really, really illegal" is to dilute the importance of legality altogether. Not to push the boundaries of the law but to make the question "Was this done according to the law?" sound silly

Didn't check the date, but then tell me that an article on tech oligarchy is from 2024 without telling me that it is from 2024: "'Look at what Zuckerberg is doing on the left with his money,' she said. But seriously, look at what Mark Zuckerberg is doing with his money these days: not very much!"

"Performance and skill are sometimes an incentive for a racket to admit the outsider ... The Volsci readily welcomed the fugitive Coriolanus, whose affinity to power shone brightly. He was a man of the gentile rackets and had the qualities of a general, which makes someone invariably recommendable."

Whatever that salute by Musk was or wasn't (apart from clownishly uncool), he's 1930s enough to attract the ire of modern-day Strasserism. Here's Steve "Gregor" Bannon on Breitbart (11 Jan 2025): "He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down."

My article on Horkheimer and Roe v Wade made it into Exchanges' list of most popular articles of 2024 😳 Am I benefitting from Trump's re-election? Ok let's not ask questions...

A note on the horrific images from the goldmine in SA. If "union representatives argue [sic!] that these are people", the argument can't be won against people who casually accept the death of hundreds as a good "deterrent of some sort, like help isn't coming as quickly as they would like" (00:17:20)

1/ For unfortunate reasons, I'm sitting in an IKEA cafeteria, doing some work to distract myself from the aroma of Köttbullar and existential angst. An employee approaches me and asks what I'm reading. I respond that it's a book by Hegel, a 19th cent philosopher interested in the idea of freedom.

Is this still realpolitik or is it already madness? The new leader of the conservative People's Party labels the fascist Freedom Party a "risk to Austria's security" while confirming that he would be happy to serve as vice-chancellor in a coalition with the Freedom Party.

😎: watching the chess World Rapid Championship in your favourite denim 😎😎: playing in the WRC in your fav denim 😎😎😎: being disqualified from the WRC bec you insist on wearing your fav denim 😎😎😎😎: commenting at the WRC "I recall facing Rh3 in 1948", years before James Dean popularised denim jeans

Talk about being old-fashioned: apparently my thesis abstract is as readable as the average summary was around 1980 (at a Flesch reading-ease score of 30.6). econ.st/3ZJVx8y

I suppose the way to put a positive spin on this is to credit Musk with making explicit what's largely been concealed from the public: that many legislators are beholden to the monied interests that define their political career and identity. You don't bite the hand that fills your campaign coffers.

On the pragmatics of false binaries

Visual footnote to the pragmatics of analytic truths in late-stage capitalism

Just landed in HK after a terrific workshop at the University of Glasgow, co-organised by @phirsch.bsky.social (also featuring @mortenboe.bsky.social & @johwei.bsky.social). Great opportunity to test the patience of criminal law theorists with a paper on Hegel's justification of punishment 😇

New short book on the philosopher, feminist and educationalist Amalia Holst by my colleague Andrew Cooper is free to download from 26th November 2024 - 24th December 2024 www.cambridge.org/core/element...

🗣️📢 Criminal law theorists! Historians of political thought! Normative people! Hegelians and not-so-much-Hegelians! Here's a call for abstracts for a cute conference on Hegel's concept of wrong, to be held in September 2025 in the equally cute city of Freiburg 🌲🌳🌲 #cfa #lawsky #philsky #crimsky

"Rawls’s ideas ... offer the kind of animating vision that could rejuvenate the Democrats – and other center-left parties." Diagnoses like these might be part of the problem. A coherent vision of justice won't win you elections. But explaining it to your electorate will likely lose you elections.

I've found this an interesting take: with cultural issues increasingly deciding elections, the Democratic Party is at a disadvantage because their internal structures are dominated by single-issue advocacy groups that are primarily representative of a progressive donor class.

Economist: the rise of the minimum wage is bad because class distinctions are good. Or am I missing sth? www.economist.com/britain/2024...

Acc to Pelosi and Rhodes (in the NYT), the standard post mortem among Dems seems to be: It was all just a big communication mishap. "We are the kitchen table, working-class party of America" (Pelosi) that simply needs to sell "a new vision of liberalism and democracy" (Rhodes). Doesn't bode well.

First Bluesky experiment: I'm looking for literature on the "voice" of the criminal law. Stuff like Antony Duff's claim that CL "speaks in our collective voice", or Michelle M Dempsey's that CL "often fails to speak on behalf of the polity." Any pointers much appreciated #PhilSky #LawSky #CrimSky

Trump's pick for head of Cookie Protection Agency confirmed

"The market is always right."

In § 110 of his 1818/19 lectures on "Natural law and the science of the state", the final precursor to the Outlines of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel closes his discussion on the difference between revenge and punishment with a remark that is as topical today as it has ever been. "Am tired."

"Under the rule of monopolies, language (...) is completely deprived of the purpose of expressing something. (...) The way someone talks either demonstrates his trustworthiness to the rackets, or it gives him away as a traitor." (Max Horkheimer, "Die Rackets und der Geist" (~1942))

"It is possible that once the strongest capitalistic groups gain direct control of the state, the ... governmental bureaucracy will be abolished and replaced by more dependable commissioners of these groups." (Max Horkheimer, "Sociology of class relations" (1943) [modified for legibility])

People like to turn to Adorno, Horkheimer, and other Frankfurt School scholars to make sense of Trump's demagoguery. But their critique of authoritarianism is embedded in a theory of monopoly capitalism. Worth revisiting these days, with Musk, Sacks, and their ilk soon relocating to the WH