Category: Philosophy

  • Defining General Fascism

    Defining General Fascism

    Here I give a refinement of my definition of general fascism as the launchpad for analyzing historical states.

  • Why Propaganda Works

    Why Propaganda Works

    “American sociologists scientifically try to play down the effectiveness of propaganda because they cannot accept the idea that the individual—that cornerstone of democracy—can be so fragile; and because they retain their ultimate trust in man.” This is a line from early in Jacques Ellul’s book Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (Propagandes in the original…

  • What Is General Fascism?

    What Is General Fascism?

    What I’m going to present is “general fascism”, with a similar meaning as Eco’s but not the same thing. Again, the difference isn’t so much in the goal but in the approach. Reading Eco’s piece, it’s clear that his analysis is based primarily on his experience of fascism. My approach is much more historicist. For…

  • Why Should We Care About a Bill?

    Why Should We Care About a Bill?

    Why would the passing of a law do anything to change public opinion? Not only that, why would a bill being filed – one that’s a longshot to pass – be enough to do that? Shouldn’t these actions simply be seen as other opinions?

  • A Non-Grand Thesis of Luxury Politics

    A Non-Grand Thesis of Luxury Politics

    My goal with this work is to explore this question: How does a smaller group of people manage to rule over a larger one? Why is “there are more of us” not enough to create change? My answer to that question is “the subjugation effect” and this work is my attempt to explain what that…

  • Deleuze, Nietzsche, and a New Drive

    Deleuze, Nietzsche, and a New Drive

    Why do I want to do this? I have said this before, too. It’s because these ideas are conservative ideas. They are the conservative justifications for their political agenda. As such, they have no value for those who want real justice.

  • Protest and the Construction of Power

    Protest and the Construction of Power

    The surest sign that a protest is effective is if the military opens fire on it. I want to explain why this is. Of course, I’m considering both “protest” and “effective” in a narrow sense here but I think the general point is understandable on its face: as a challenge to the government, a protest’s…

  • Thoughts on the Critique of the Gotha Programme

    Thoughts on the Critique of the Gotha Programme

    I wanted to talk about the Critique of the Gotha Programme because I feel it has relevance to our current situation where the left is in the political wilderness. The Gotha Programme’s aims, in the eyes of Marx, were to sand down the edges of the socialist movement such that it would not seem so…

  • What Is Religion

    What Is Religion

    In this bias I am going to lay out my general approach to religion and parareligion (or “secular religion”), mostly as a base to build off of in future articles. I want to establish a general framework that can be used to analyze religions and similar philosophical structures in a comparative way. I’ve always been…