Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the […]
The post Cathartic, Dealing with Trauma, on Being Humane first appeared on Dissident Voice.
In 1995, Umberto Eco assessed that ‘Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. […]
The post As American as Apple Pie? first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The shifting baseline syndrome requires today’s people disavowing things written 10 years ago, even five years ago, but those books, articles, whitepapers and radio broadcasts are actually ahead of their time . . . And what is that expiration date for good, sound, righteous news and writing and broadcasting? I see more and more young […]
The post Out with the Old, In with the New first appeared on Dissident Voice.
In the ideological disciplines—the humanities and social sciences—it is rare to come across a theoretical work that doesn’t seem to fetishize verbiage and jargonizing for their own sake. From the relatively lucid analytical Marxism of an Erik Olin Wright1 to the turgid cultural theory of a Stuart Hall, pretentious prolixity is, apparently, seen as an […]
The post Common Sense in the Form of Theory first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The Russia-Ukraine war has quickly turned into a global conflict. One of the likely outcomes of this war is the very redefinition of the current world order, which has been in effect, at least since the collapse of the Soviet Union over three decades ago. Indeed, there is a growing sense that a new global […]
May 13, 2022 By Stephen Gowans Empiric, a word infrequently used these days, refers to a quack. This seems odd, considering that empiric and empirical (based on observation) are related. In antiquity, empirics were physicians who relied on their experience and observation rather than on the texts of Aristotle and other philosophers to treat patients. … Continue reading Socialist China or Capitalist China?
Colonial politics and imperialism are not healthy, curable deviations of capitalism…they are the inevitable consequence of the very foundations of capitalism. Competition among individual entrepreneurs either to become ruined, or to ruin others; competition between individual countries places before each of them the alternative of their remaining behind, running the risk of [falling behind], or … Continue reading Why China Is Not Socialist →
In January 2019, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed the world would end in 12 years if we didn’t address “climate change”. The following month she published her Green New Deal resolution, which you can read here. Few people appear to have read it, but recently Marjorie Taylor Greene said she had. Before going any further it is […]
As you probably know, Macmillan is an international publishing house, a massive one. In March this year it issued a four page pamphlet called GENDER PAY GAP REPORT 2022. Apart from that, it hasn’t been in the news much of late, although The Bookseller published some comment on this publication late last month. The gender […]
April 13, 2022 By Stephen Gowans Some radical socialists practice a politics that carries over from the days when to be a revolutionary meant supporting the Soviet Union or China. With the Soviet Union gone, and socialist China a distant dream (and perhaps one never to be achieved under the direction of the current communist … Continue reading The Mental Illness of Anachronistic Radical Socialism →
