Author: Mark Gullick

2,111 words

Jacques Derrida

(Part 1 here)

Still confining ourselves for simplicity to spoken utterance.
-J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words
Also the epigraph to Jacques Derrida’s Signature, Event, Context (more…)

2,979 words

If a week is a long time in politics, as British Prime Minister Harold Wilson is supposed to have quipped to lobby journalists in 1964, then a month is an eternity. In mid-February, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party was riding high, topping electoral polls and threatening both main wings of the British uniparty, Labour and Conservative. (more…)

2,296 words

John Langham Austin was an English philosopher of language, an Oxford Don, and (like Alan Turing) a Military Intelligence Officer, who worked on the D-Day landings. Born in 1911, Austin died relatively young, at the age of 48, and his three books were all published posthumously. (more…)

2,017 words

In one county (Franklin), it is claimed 99 people out of 100 are making, or have some connection with, illicit liquor.
-Official Records, (US) National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, 1935

My brother Forrest once said that nothing could kill us, that we could never die.
-Jack Bondurant, Lawless
(more…)

2,580 words

There has never been a public debate about climate change. Only dogma.
-Ian Plimer, The Science and Politics of Climate Change

You and your idiot brother
Waiting in the wings.
Which one holds up the other?
Which one pulls the strings?
-The Auteurs, “Idiot Brother” (more…)

1,920 words

You’re gambling with World War 3.
—President Trump to President Zelensky.

I was a miner,
I was a docker,
I was a railwayman
Between the wars.
—Billy Bragg, Between the Wars
(more…)

2,978 words

Ryan T. Anderson
When Harry Became Sally
Encounter Books, 2018

Gender properly understood is a social manifestation of human nature, springing forth from biological realities, though shaped by rational and moral choice.
-Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally (more…)

2,018 words

Doctor, Heal Thyself

England has produced some iconic fictional characters. James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, even Harry Potter; all are recognizably and pleasingly of English stock and lineage. Sadly, 007 is going woke, and the franchise has just been bought by Amazon, which seems unlikely to halt the death spiral. (more…)

3,176 words

Perhaps it is better that doge became its own word, with its own implications, inferences and cultural meanings to parse.
-Charlie Allison, Venetian Concepts of Power in the Office of the Doge

When Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was still in its formative stages, before the re-election of Donald Trump, I wrote the following here at Counter Currents: (more…)

2,578 words

Alan Sokal

Postmodernism is the first ruthlessly consistent statement of the consequences of rejecting reason.
-Stephen Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism

The story of this book begins with a hoax.
-Sokal & Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense (more…)

2,741 words

What is a horror movie? One which horrifies the viewer, presumably, but the genre is a fluid one. A quick scroll through YouTube brings up a host of aficionado sites which obviously fit the bill, and should you wish to peruse 10 Disturbing Italian Cannibal Horror Movies That Can Terrify You For Weeks, then be my guest. But while romantic comedies, westerns, war movies and gangster flicks are relatively easy to categorize, what makes a horror film can depend very much on who is watching it. (more…)

2,138 words

Martin Frost holds an Israeli flag moments before burning a Koran

We made a swift arrest at the time and recognise the right people have for freedom of expression, but when this crosses into intimidation to cause harm or distress we will always look to take action when it is reported to us.
-Assistant Chief Constable Stephanie Parker, Manchester Police Constabulary, after the public burning of a copy of the Koran

You have the right to free speech
As long as you’re not dumb enough
To actually try it.
-The Clash, “Know Your Rights” (more…)

2,315 words

One of the saddest things about the tragedy that England has become is the loss of its comedy. Traditionally seen as a nation of sober, sensible yeomanry with a philosophical tradition of bullish empiricism and a stiff upper lip to boot, the English were the epitome of gravitas. And yet this small, rainy, rather gloomy country has produced supreme comedy not just for domestic consumption, but able to travel abroad carrying the universally accepted currency of humor. (more…)