Finally got around to reading the Wilson translation of the Odyssey, which happened to be included in volume A of the 4th edition of the Norton Anthology of World Literature that has languished on my shelf for a few years.

I don't really need an introduction in general, but it doesn't hurt to go back to the basics. The section on Poetry I found useful. That's probably my weak point.

Not really too impressed with Weil in general. I know this is more or less just an essay, but I've read other things. Her Platonism is a little ridiculous, but her earnestness is refreshing, one might say.

Back to the classics. I don't have too much to say on this one.

As a work of history I think this book is seriously flawed. Losurdo betrays an immense ignorance of American history, and this is more of a propagandistic polemic than a serious reflection on history.

Short, but good. Another Hobsbawm classic.

Interested in reading more on this. The included essays were interesting, but it seems like they had a very narrow focus on England and Northern France. They're quite old as well. It would be interesting to see how this debate has evolved in the past 50 years.

Been pretty lax about posting. Busy with real world duties, but I've still gotten a fair bit of reading done. This is old, the contributions date from the early 60's, but it was still an interesting read. There was a bit more diversity of thought than I expected.

For some reason Towles' books are something of a guilty pleasure. He's a pretty mediocre author and I find his overly affected bourgeois snobbery to be kind of unbearable at times. Yet I still have fun with these. Enjoyed this more than the Lincoln Highway at any rate.

The more I see about this 'feudalism' discourse the more I'm reminded how the vast majority of marxists on twitter, despite their pretensions, are anti-intellectual philistines with a visceral hatred for any field of knowledge outside their own little bubble.

Been a bit since I posted. Finished this yesterday. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend it. Probably too much detail, and I think Orlando Figes covers the malignancy and incompetence of this disastrous figure far better and more concisely in his 'A People's Tragedy'.

It's that time of year(to buy a bunch of books via annual holiday discount).

A superb essay about Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain (and the Davos hotels which the sanatoriums on which it was based have become) by Samantha Rose Hill theamericanscholar.org/under-a-spel...

After all these years, finally got around to beginning Hobsbawm's legendary series. Haven't learned much new from this, but I've read a lot of history over the years. It really does synthesize a lot of information and I think this remains relevant.

Been busy with things, but I finally got around to finishing this. I've wanted to read a variety of things about the CIA and FBI, so I consider this a first step. The book is quite comprehensive, but I think it is a little bottom heavy. The later period is covered more briefly.

Important to realize that when people are faced with events that challenge their worldview they generally double down on them rather than re-evaluating. Worldviews are very robust to, and even strengthened by, disconfirming experience. This is very bearish for mass politics

One thing about studying early US history that surprised me a bit is how much slavery permeated everything. We take it for granted that this was in the case in the south, but what about in the north? At the time of the revolution 20% of Boston households held enslaved people.

One of the countless irritating things about liberals is that their screaming about 'America First' is a sham. Just bring up any aspect of American foreign policy and they all instantly turn into America Firsters.

Mixed things up with a combo about both the American and French revolutions. The usual caveat with biographies applies. This also reminds me about how much more I need to read about the French Revolution, and how woefully lacking English language historiography is on the subject.

Back to book posting, quite a backlog to post yet. This one wasn't too interesting. Marginal figure in the greater scheme of things.

The way social media has shaped the left today is pretty unsatisfying. It encourages an orgy of commentary in a way that neither changes anything nor adds to any meaningful discussion or conversation. Chatter for the sake of chatter. We're all guilty of that to some extent.

Do people still use this? might start cross posting here.

Disgusting to see Marxists applaud Bernie Sanders for saying that Israel should bomb Palestinian civilians, but moderately! Same shit as always. Posture radical while lining up behind progressive liberals. Been that way for nearly 100 years now.

It's interesting to see AOC use this tactic. She lacks the balls to endorse Israel directly, so she condemns those who oppose it. The question is why? Apparently she worries about offending anti-zionists, even though they unconditionally vote Dem anyway. So what's the point?

“I do not support Hamas, but rather the Palestinian people themselves!” This is an absurdity given that Hamas is presently the institution through which national liberation finds expression. There is no abstract will of the people that preexists its concrete embodiment.

What is shocking is not the ugliness of people, but their lack of judgement. -Thomas Bernhard

Finished rereading this yesterday. It was much less impactful the second time, and it certainly pales compared to some of Bernhard’s other works like Gargoyles and Woodcutters.

“Communism”

Finished this today. The most depressing thing about this book is that it makes you realize that American progressive liberals 100 years ago were more combative and militant than most Marxists are today. It’s not even a high bar in the first place, come on.

End stage Twitter is now a mix of clout farming, right wing conspiracies, and arguments over what sunscreen would be like under Full Communism

The thing about the relationship between Twitter and journalists is that the biggest impact was felt by the highest-profile and most pampered national writers, who were driven insane by people talking back to them for the first time but too addicted to ever put down the phone. I liked that a lot

I’m very skeptical of the DSA and DSA Marxists. Liberals seem dominant in the organization and this is reflected in the decisions that are made. For instance, the org’s ‘anti-imperialism’/‘internationalism’ is centered on being anti-Israel rather than opposing American intervention in Ukraine.

I honestly don’t get the hype some people have for Spinoza. Why does Spinoza still matter in the 21st century? I’m sorry, but it seems like a meme to me, like Nietzsche.

It also annoys me that historians tend to fall into one of two false extremes: Stalin as an uncultured, brainless hack with no intellectual ability; and Stalin as a theoretical mastermind every bit the equal of Lenin, Trotsky, and Bukharin. The truth is somewhere between these extremes.

My suspicion ended up being correct: a serious devotee of Soviet history will learn nothing new from reading a Stalin biography. All the details can be found piecemeal elsewhere in more specialized books that are of greater use. None the less, I’m moving on to the 1000+ page volume 2.

Government promoted alien discourse and instead of Men in Black style panic—all I have is skeptical ennui.

Kotkin's book does indeed have the usual problems that crop up with virtually every history that covers the period of the revolution. An all too easy dismissal of it as a "coup", which he also appends rather astoundingly to the February Revolution and not just October.

I occupy a strange, liminal position. Marx influenced, but not Marxist. I also question whether one can call themselves a communist in a situation where in no country on earth is there a working class political movement as such, and no guarantee there will ever be one.

It’s funny. I’ve read over a hundred books on Soviet history, but not a single biography of Stalin. Stalin is so central to the first half of Soviet history that you really don’t even need to, but I’m reading this for fun. I’m a little skeptical of this one, but we’ll see.

The most annoying thing about social media is that everyone feels entitled to pontificate on “fascism” despite being completely ignorant as to what it is. Today, the designation of fascism is nothing more than insipid moralism, more than 9 out of 10 times.

This book actually is incredible. One of the best collections of short stories I’ve ever read. Strong recommendation, ifs a top ten for sure.

Dipping my toes into Japanese fiction. Never read any aside from Murakami before. Fingers crossed. I have a lot of respect for good short story writers. Writing a good one is high alchemy, probably more difficult than making a decent novel.

This isn’t the first time Zizek has massively fucked up. His incredibly wrong support for Syriza and Podemos in 2015 comes to mind(which to this day he has never recanted). In the past he has eventually recovered and returned to a semblance of intelligence, but he’s clearly not coming back from this

Finished another one. This book was kind of shit. A conglomerate of mostly random essays on a similar theme that fail to tie together, a common trend in Zizek’s books. He has a few on Heidegger in here and he’s completely uncritical. Zizek jumped the shark with Covid and he’s never returning.

It seems like accelerationism has supplanted libertarianism as the preferred ideology of right wing intellectuals in recent years. Looking back, this has probably been the case for a while.

What sucks about this platform’s immaturity is a lack of critical mass of scholastic nerds into literature, history, and philosophy. There’s no one to follow.

Just got done with this. This book was awful. It’s a lot like his “PANDEMIC!” books: a compilation of short, derivative essays he probably wrote while taking a shit. Zizek ends up concluding that there is no option but to tail progressive liberals, same as everyone else.

You know that cinema is dead when Uwe Boll has to give you advice.. and he’s right.