Categories
Mimetic Theory Outsiders Poststructuralism Theory

The Violence of Institutions, or Girard avec Foucault

René Girard and Michel Foucault shared an abiding interest in the violence embedded in institutions.

Categories
Outsiders Postmodernism Poststructuralism Theory Theory on the Outside Wild Theory

Theorycels in Trumpworld

The links between the Trump administration and critical theory are less surprising than they might seem.

Categories
Postmodernism Poststructuralism Technology Theory

The Linguistic Turn: On “Cynical Theories,” Part 3

The postmodern emphasis on language derives from the evolution of hi-tech liberal capitalist societies.

Categories
Postmodernism Poststructuralism Theory

Metanarrative Obsolescence: On “Cynical Theories,” Part 2

Did “Theory” make people skeptical of science, as Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay claim? Jean-François Lyotard’s account of the decline of metanarratives offers another view.

Categories
Postmodernism Poststructuralism Technology Theory

The Simulation of Violence after 9/11

Is totalized simulation a strategy of conflict management or a driver of conflict? Some of both.

Categories
Mimetic Theory Poststructuralism Theory Wild Theory

Control Societies with Sacrificial Characteristics

Hi-tech networked control and archaic sacrificial systems may seem like opposites, but in fact, they complement each other.