A Potpouri of Philosopical and Political Books and Articles
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A book and a few of the articles I’ve been reading lately.
The book I’ve been reading lately is Maria Ressa’s How To Stand Up To A Dictator. Ressa was the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, and the book is a memoir of a career spent holding power to account. She is a renowned international journalists who for decades challenged corruption in her native country, the Philippines, which she helped transform from an authoritarian state to a democracy.
The book tells the story of how the creep towards authoritarianism, in the Philippines and around the world, has been aided by the social media companies which have allowed their platforms to spread the lies that infect us all, pitting us against one another, igniting and creating, our fears, anger, and hate, and how this has accelerated the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world. This network of disinformation has netted the globe: from Duterte’s drug wars to America’s Capitol Hill; Britain’s Brexit to Russian and Chinese cyber-warfare; Facebook and Silicon Valley to our own clicks and votes.
The salient point is that democracy is fragil and that Western readers must recognize and understand the dangers to our freedoms before it is too late.
Just a very few recent noteworthy articles I’ve read
“GOP plans to win this election — in court, if not at the ballot box” by David Daley. He is the author of the new book Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections and the national bestseller “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count.” He is the former editor-in-chief of Salon. (I still encourage my readers to vote for the Democratic party and not the Nazi (Republican) party. And this isn’t hyperbole.)
“Moral progress is annoying” by Daniel Kelly who is a professor in the philosophy department at Purdue University in Indiana. This is a great essay belieing the claim that our “norm psychology” is a good guide to moral truth. Our moral intuitions don’t discern moral truth. Moreover, the fact that something is new or different or unsettling—something that may make you feel yuchy—is not an argument against that thing.
“Why psychedelics produce some of the most meaningful experiences in people’s lives” by
Oshan Jarow who is a staff writer with Vox’s Future Perfect. I think the title explains what this piece is about.
“The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel” by Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser. Dr. Frank is an astrophysicist at the University of Rochester. Dr. Gleiser is a theoretical physicist at Dartmouth College. Again I’ll let the title be the guide and if interested you can read more about this topic in the essay “How to understand all the talk about a “crisis in cosmology.” Perhaps the standard model needs to be seriously revised; or perhaps just slightly modified.
“Whither philosophy?” by Siobhan Lyons, a scholar in media and cultural studies based in Sydney, Australia. It’s main theme is that philosophy today finds itself precariously balanced between incomprehensible specialisation and cheap self-help. I always wanted to exist in the space between these two extremes as a philosopher. Whether I succeeded I do not know.
That’s it for now. So much to learn, so little time.
