Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 893 )

• Social Embeddedness of Scientific and Intellectual Work

  

  How do complex, socially embodied processes of cultural and scientific creation work? (I'm thinking of artistic traditions, scientific research communities,... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2022 SOCIETY

• The GOP Descent into Right-wing Authoritarianism

  

  In December 2020 I reviewed Hannah Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism in The Origins of Totalitarianism (link) to try to assess the damage and threats... Read more

  Posted on 22 June 2022 SOCIETY

• Philosophy After the Holocaust

  

  The sustained, extended atrocities of the twentieth century -- the genocide of the Holocaust, the Holodomor, totalitarian repression, the Gulag, the Armenian... Read more

  Posted on 15 June 2022 SOCIETY

• Dysfunctions of Soviet Economic Ministries

  

  In my book A New Social Ontology of Government (2020) I tried to provide an analytical inventory of the sources of "dysfunctions" in large organizations and... Read more

  Posted on 04 June 2022 SOCIETY

• Soviet Atrocities in Ukraine, 1941

  

  In light of the horrific information now available about atrocities committed in Ukraine by occupying Russian forces in towns such as Bucha -- rape, torture,... Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2022 SOCIETY

• Infrastructures of Evil

  

  Politicians, generals, corporate directors, and ordinary men and women had a direct relationship to the evils of the twentieth century. Read more

  Posted on 26 May 2022 SOCIETY

• How Will Russia's Fascist Aggression End?

  

  Ukraine has demonstrated a truly singular level of competence and commitment in its armed resistance to Russia's war since February 24. Much credit goes to... Read more

  Posted on 22 May 2022 SOCIETY

• Incitement of Violence by Far-right Media Networks

  

  The sickening tragedy of Buffalo yesterday -- the racist attack on a group of African-American shoppers and workers by an 18-year-old white supremacist man in... Read more

  Posted on 15 May 2022 SOCIETY

• Злі Наслідки Тоталітарних Ідеологій

  [This entry provides Ukrainian and Russian translations of a recent post on totalitarian evil offered as a gesture of support for potential Ukrainian readers.... Read more

  Posted on 12 May 2022 SOCIETY

• Evil Consequences of Totalitarian Ideologies

  

  It is evident that human beings create evil; but human beings are often driven and dominated by totalitarian ideologies that make great evils possible. Read more

  Posted on 08 May 2022 SOCIETY

• Tolstoy's Characterization of Napoleon (Putin)

  

  One of Leo Tolstoy's characteristic beliefs about history in War and Peace is the idiocy of the notion of "great men" who make history. Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2022 SOCIETY

• Tolstoy's Philosophy of History

  

  Isaiah Berlin's essay The Hedgehog and the Fox is a particularly interesting combination of philosophical analysis and literary criticism. Read more

  Posted on 29 April 2022 SOCIETY

• Can Nietzsche Support a Decent Political Philosophy?

  

  Nietzsche's anti-moralism is a key theme in his philosophy and civilizational criticism. He regarded traditional European morality as "herd morality", the... Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2022 SOCIETY

• Realism About Social Entities

  

  Critical realism depends on the key notion that sociologists are justified in construing their statements about social entities as real, objective features of... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2022 SOCIETY

• Machiavelli and the Totalitarian State

  

  Isaiah Berlin's essay on Machiavelli in Against the Current is penetrating and detailed, valuable both for the specialist and the general philosophical reader. Read more

  Posted on 10 April 2022 SOCIETY

• The Open Texture of the Social World

  

  What is involved in arriving at scientific knowledge about the social world? The position I have consistently taken emphasizes contingency and heterogeneity of... Read more

  Posted on 06 April 2022 SOCIETY

• Philosophies of the Far Right

  image: Joseph de MaistreThe ideologies of the far right have a particularly strong grip on a segment of democratic society in the current epoch. Read more

  Posted on 02 April 2022 SOCIETY

• Classification of Political Systems and Theories

  

  Graph of political systems (click image for full resolution)It is possible to analyze much of the history of modern political philosophy -- political theory... Read more

  Posted on 28 March 2022 SOCIETY

• Carlyle's Critique of Modernity

  

  What is wrong with life in the modern world? The complaint that modern society represents a toxic reduction of the importance of community in the lives of... Read more

  Posted on 26 March 2022 SOCIETY

• An Extremism Index for Elected Officials

  

  Senator Mike Braun (R-Indiana) made news in the past few days by questioning whether the Supreme Court was right to rule in 1967 that state bans on interracial... Read more

  Posted on 23 March 2022 SOCIETY