I Think You Should Leave is the comedy vehicle of Tim Robinson, a former SNL alumnus, formed of a series of short, sharp absurd sketches set in everyday America, which burst through accepted social norms, as the characters engage in increasingly outlandish behaviour. Although some begin in strange circumstances, and get stranger from there, many start in mundane, quotidian settings: a meeting in an office, dinner at a restaurant, a school, or perhaps a baby shower. …
Gregg Wallace; The Talking Egg; The Eggman; Gr-Egg Wallace; Gregg Wallace looks like an egg, and Gregg Wallace is everywhere, taking over; this cannot be a coincidence. Gregg Wallace has spawned, spreading his seed all over TV; every time you turn it on you are caught in a blinding haze of Gregg’s overwhelming enthusiasm, weirdly shaped mouth and slightly, unsettling, sinister laugh.
Gregg Wallace first came to widespread attention on Masterchef, as the round, shiny greengrocer (?) companion to John Torode’s aloof Australian bogan character. After being, thankfully, confined there for a while, he has proliferated, spreading his egg-like, boyish…
In a previous article I introduced the concept of ‘Originism’, and in this article I will define this term, explain the significance of it, and that how this concept frames historical analysis, and constructs historical knowledge, needs to be resisted.
Originism contends that a concept, idea, or process is explained, justified, or legitimated by its origins; so that investigating, or excavating, the historical conjuncture of is origins is the most powerful explanatory tool available for historical analysis. …
Two books I have read recently have both been on a similar topic; the origins of current economic thinking. The first by Quinn Slobidian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, explores the origins of the thinking, and thinkers, behind neoliberalism. The second by Phillip Mirowski, More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature’s Economics, investigates the original theoretical basis for what we now know as neoclassical economics. Both of these books are very readable, and persuasive, accounts that effectively tackle some of the received wisdom behind these dominant paradigms.
However, both suffer from…
The liberal, Enlightenment idea of ‘rationality’ is a concept which has been used as the external validator of human actions. If something is rational then it is deemed correct by a measure which exists outside of us, and our petty biases and emotions. Specifically, it is used as a justification for power; by those in power for their actions, and their reactions. It is presented as a context free value, which exists beyond the social, political and economic climate in which it resides.
It has become especially prominent within liberal democracies; the government of choice of the Western world in…
The film Phantom Thread, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and apparently Daniel Day-Lewis’ last film is a well-made, tightly shot film that grandly showcases the entire range of Daniel Day-Lewis’ facial expressions, and truly makes one appreciate the beauty of a frying mushroom. Beyond all the well placed spoons and fastidiously sewed hems there is a deeper message to be read about our current historical conjuncture. It can be quite explicitly seen as an allegory of capitalism, its internal contradictions and antagonisms, and the dialectics that this produces and how it relates to the human society it is intertwined with.
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There have been a number of government policies enacted by this Conservative government which have served to illustrate the misunderstanding prevalent within the mainstream British discourse of how politics, and specifically power in politics, operates. Policies which aimed to solve a societal problem (housing shortages, unemployment, bureaucracy etc.), but proved ineffectual once their outcomes became measurable. The standard response within the British commentariat is to excoriate the government for their incompetence, and suggest alternative technocratic solutions which would better address the issues. …
There has been a trend recently of the fetishisation of “agree to disagree” politics: the perceived ability of the political system to encompass and reflect a wide range of views without recourse to violence and with free speech being the most important quality of the public discourse. Everyone is supposed to be able to speak freely and without being persecuted for their political speech and this right is to be held as the core value of pluralist liberal democracy. This is supposed to include all manner of views, no matter how distasteful; in a way the more distasteful the views…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2017/08/20/why-is-westeros-still-poor/#298436d42abd
This article in Forbes about the economic history and development of Westoros is an example of a fairly standard piece which has become more prominent in the last few years since Game of Thrones hit our screens. The analysis of the economy of fictional worlds is not a new genre, but this sort of analysis has become more popular as fantasy has become more mainstream and acceptable as a spectacle, and therefore an object of conceptual analysis.
This particular piece would at first glance seem relatively benign, unoriginal and lacking any meaningful insight into the inner workings of the…
The financial crisis that rippled across the world in 2007/8 was the result of hubris and overconfidence in the ability of the financial sector to predict the future. Financial products were bought and sold based not, on a sober analysis of the assets on which they were ultimately based, but rather a speculative value was placed on them depending on what they believed someone else — similarly uninformed as they were — would pay for it. They were placing bets on a horse race they never believed would be run — believing they knew and understood all of the rules…
