Jun 17, 2021Member-onlyDisaster JunkiesWe live in an era where catastrophe looms large in the political imagination. On the one side, we find hellacious visions of climate crisis and ecological collapse; on the other, grim warnings of social disintegration through plummeting birth rates, mass immigration and crime. Popular culture’s vivid post-apocalyptic worlds, from Cormac…Book Review11 min readBook Review11 min read
Jun 10, 2021Member-onlyHow the Celebs Rule UsWho should we call the first “Instagram billionaire”? It’s a mark of the new Gilded Age we’ve entered that both women vying for that title belong to the same family, the illustrious Kardashian-Jenner clan. In 2019, it looked like Kylie Jenner had passed the ten-figure mark, only for Forbes to…Celebrity12 min readCelebrity12 min read
May 22, 2021Member-onlyTradition with a capital T: Dylan at 80It’s December 1963, and a roomful of liberal luminaries are gathered at New York’s Americana Hotel. They are here for the presentation of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee’s prestigious Tom Paine Award, an accolade which, a year earlier, had been accepted by esteemed philosopher and anti-nuclear campaigner Bertrand Russell. …Bob Dylan12 min readBob Dylan12 min read
Mar 27, 2021Member-onlyEurope’s vaccine cooperation isn’t federalist dogmaThis week, Douglas Murray argued that the on-going shambles of the European Union’s vaccination effort should be chalked up to federalist dogma. …European Union3 min readEuropean Union3 min read
Mar 25, 2021Member-onlyEurope’s empty moral gesturesThe story of the Opium Wars in mid-19th century China has been told in many ways, but the account which has always stayed with me is the short one given by W.G. Sebald in The Rings of Saturn. …History5 min readHistory5 min read
Published inThe Startup·Feb 27, 2021Member-onlyWhat Space Architecture Says About UsWith the recent expedition of Nasa’s Perseverence rover to Mars, I’ve taken an interest in space architecture; more specifically, habitats for people on the moon or the Red Planet. The subject first grabbed my attention earlier this year, when I saw that a centuries-old forestry company in Japan is developing…Architecture5 min readArchitecture5 min read
Feb 12, 2021Member-onlyThe double nightmare of the cat-lawyerAnalysing internet memes tends to be self-defeating: mostly their magic comes from a fleeting, blasé irony which makes you look like a fool if you try to pin it down. But sometimes a gem comes along that’s too good to let pass. Besides, the internet’s endless stream of found objects…Social Media4 min readSocial Media4 min read
Feb 10, 2021Member-onlyGambling on technocratsThe likely appointment of Mario Draghi as Italy’s next prime minister has been widely, if nervously, greeted as a necessary step. Draghi, an esteemed economist and central banker, will be the fourth unelected technocrat to fill the post in Italy in the last 30 years. …Politics5 min readPolitics5 min read
Published inArc Digital·Jan 27, 2021Member-onlyWhat’s Really at Stake in the Fascism DebateIs fascism a singular, historical evil or a more abstract, malevolent force? — Many themes of the Trump presidency reached a crescendo on January 6th, when the now-former president’s supporters rampaged through the Capitol building. Among those themes is the controversy over whether we should label the Trump movement “fascist.” This argument has flared-up at various points since Trump won the Republican nomination…Fascism6 min readFascism6 min read
Published inArc Digital·Nov 14, 2020Member-onlyExcuses, ExcusesAmericans are forgetting how to accept electoral defeat — It has become a fad recently to find echoes of America’s religious past in its current politics. Well, the last fortnight has reminded me of nothing so much as the event known as “The Great Disappointment.” On October 22, 1844, a major movement known as the Millerites — after William…Politics5 min readPolitics5 min read
