Posts Tagged ‘democracy’
Nothing Surprises Me… Everything Remains To Be Done!
It’s been hard not to be flabbergasted by Donald Trump’s return to the White House. And yet, all we are witnessing is, no more and no less, the most caricatured but assumed, unfiltered form of the dominant model of society that we have been living in for several centuries. We are the educated, polite Westerners…
Read MoreRethinking Technology and the Good Society
Despite suffering from debilitating headaches and generally poor health, Weil completed her work during a remarkable burst of activity. She died later that year at the age of 34. The report was published in 1949. The first English translation appeared in 1952 as The Need for Roots: prelude towards a declaration of duties towards mankind.…
Read More‘Rude music’, empathy, and the case for localism
The publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859 rattled the foundations of religious belief in every corner of the book-reading world. We know a good bit about the debates that ensued because they still flare up wherever there are people who insist on the literal truth of the origins myth found in the…
Read MoreThe Flower of Transformation
With growing news of war and conflict, ecological and climate catastrophe, stark inequalities, health crises related to both poverty and affluence, the authoritarianism of governments, and the increasing stranglehold of mega-corporations in all aspects of our lives, it is understandable that there is deep anxiety about the present and future of humanity. On the brighter…
Read MoreOn Ukraine and the failed Pax Capitalis
During the previous three decades, a particularly new and ahistorical view of the world has arisen in the modern, “civilized,” capitalist West. Famously elaborated by an advisor to Ronald Reagan and later repeated by both liberal and conservative politicians, theorists, and academics, and also iterated constantly through mass news and entertainment media, we have come…
Read MorePutting technology in its place
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Read MoreNet zero and ‘nature-based’ solutions: corporate greenwashing
Corporations are, without a doubt, the number one obstacle to meaningful action on the climate crisis. These almighty actors have spent the past two decades undermining scientific consensus, blocking meaningful legislation and greenwashing their own responsibility. Even the last ditch Paris Agreement, with its lame voluntary commitment to keep the world to a still disastrous…
Read MoreWhat does self-reliance really mean? Amazing stories from India’s villages
Not so long ago, Dalit women farmers in Telangana used to face hunger and deprivation. Today, they have contributed foodgrains for pandemic relief. Farmers on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border have been sending organic produce to Bengaluru even during the lockdown. And Adivasi villages in central India are using community funds to take care of migrant…
Read MoreTen reasons to be concerned about 5G
Once cast, 5G’s inescapable net will have consequences on everything from the night sky down to the cells of our bodies. With two legal cases against 5G roll-out getting underway in the UK,[1] here are just ten of many reasons why 5G is such a bad idea – and not one of them has anything…
Read MoreWe will survive the Coronavirus. Will we survive ourselves?
What an astonishing slap in humanity’s face, this coronavirus. But the silver lining is that it is also a rude wake up call. I say ‘silver lining’, for at the centre of this is a massive humanitarian crisis of illnesses and deaths – and for working classes who cannot switch to ‘online’ work, whose workplaces…
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