4,453 words
Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
It is during and after the First World War that reinforced concrete was incorporated into political programs as a “progressive” building material. The Futurist Antonio Sant’Elia inspired an entire generation of so-called “brutalists”: Le Corbusier, Buckminster Fuller, and members of the movement called De Stijl. Jappe cites Futurist proponents of concrete cities: (more…)
4,812 words
Translations: Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Ukrainian
Martin Heidegger is one of the giants of twentieth-century philosophy, both in terms of the depth and originality of his ideas and the breadth of his influence in philosophy, theology, the human sciences, and culture in general.
Heidegger was born on September 26, 1889 in the town of Meßkirch in the district of Sigmaringen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He died on May 26, 1976 in Freiburg and was buried in Meßkirch. (more…)
4,509 words
Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
Anselm Jappe
Béton: Arme de construction massive du capitalisme
Paris: Éditions L’échappée, 2020
Ask any thinking people what they consider to be the most dramatic and long-lasting changes in the world over the last hundred years, and a wide variety of responses may be expected, ranging from demographic shifts to the atomic bomb, (more…)
The holistic society of the Middle Ages, as embodied in the “Three Orders of Mankind,” began to be broken down by the coming to prominence of the marketplace with the rise of nation-states.
The holistic society of the Middle Ages, as embodied in the “Three Orders of Mankind,” began to be broken down by the coming to prominence of the marketplace with the rise of nation-states.
4,142 words
Part 3 of 3 (Introduction Part 1 here, Chapter I Part 2 here)
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
This strictly economic representation of society has considerable consequences. Finishing off the process of secularization and “disenchantment” of the world that is characteristic of modernity, it results in the dissolution of peoples and the systematic erosion of their particularities. At the sociological level, the adoption of economic exchange leads the society to be divided into producers, owners, and sterile classes (such as the former aristocracy) at the end of an altogether revolutionary process. (more…)
4,615 words
Part 1 of 3 (Introduction Part II here)
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
When liberalism is said to be the dominant ideology of our time, there are always those who protest by citing, for example, the amount of public expenditures or the level of taxation in our country. But this is looking at the problem through the wrong end of the telescope. A liberal society is not exactly the same thing as a liberal economy. (more…)
6,341 words
Part 3 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here)
1. Fichte on the Nature of the State
We began to explore Fichte’s political philosophy in the last installment, as expounded primarily in his 1796 work Foundations of Natural Right. It is a basic principle of Fichte’s philosophy that subjectivity, what he calls the “I,” must bring nature under the control of reason. (more…)
Alasdair MacIntyre
Alasdair MacIntyre
3,903 words
Introduction here, Chapter 9 Part 2 here, Chapter 10 Part 2 here
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
Communities, whether ancient or recent, and whether of a historical, ethnocultural, linguistic, religious, sexual, or other nature, are natural dimensions of belonging. They accompany and underlie chosen forms of identity. No individual can exist without belonging, if only to distance himself from it. (more…)
Jean-Claude Michéa
Jean-Claude Michéa
6,046 words
Introduction here, Chapter 5 Part 1 here, Chapter 6 here
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
No doubt we should have expected this. The views developed by Jean-Claude Michéa were not slow to earn him many critiques, mostly directed at two of his books, Orpheus’s Complex and Mysteries of the Left. (more…)
France’s Estates-General of 1789, where the concepts of a political Left and Right were allegedly born.
France’s Estates-General of 1789, where the concepts of a political Left and Right were allegedly born.
5,436 words
Introduction here, Chapter 2 Part 1 here
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
Many people who sincerely consider themselves to be on the Left or Right are glad to give a definition, often quite clear, of what this means, but their definition is rarely accepted by others of the Left or Right. (more…)
4,750 words
Translations: Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Ukrainian
Martin Heidegger is one of the giants of twentieth-century philosophy, both in terms of the depth and originality of his ideas and the breadth of his influence in philosophy, theology, the human sciences, and culture in general.
Heidegger was born on September 26, 1889 in the town of Meßkirch in the district of Sigmaringen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He died on May 26, 1976 in Freiburg and was buried in Meßkirch. (more…)
2,256 words
Is there a warm, fuzzy feeling in your belly yet? That’s called nostalgia. It’s what you get when your glory days are behind you and all that’s left ahead are the many and grueling indignities of middle and old age. — some daft scribbler
When we talk about modernity, what often gets talked about is the alienating effect of modern technology. (more…)
Carl Friedrich Lessing, Rocky Landscape
Carl Friedrich Lessing, Rocky Landscape
1,324 words
Many theories have been posited as to the cause of the decline of the Western world, from demographic disaster and dysgenics to spiritual malaise and the death of Christianity. Yet, while these phenomena are symptoms of our collapsing societies, they do not fully explain why we have embarked on our wholesale self-destruction. Could it be that we have let our world descend into rack and ruin because we simply do not live there anymore? For the vast majority of the developed world, cyberspace has supplanted reality. (more…)
