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Mimetic Theory Theory

Girard’s Revelation

For René Girard, the Gospels have already revealed the most fundamental truths. What, then, is his own contribution to knowledge?

Categories
Mimetic Theory Technology The Left The Outside The Right Theory Theory of the Outside

Mimetic Acceleration and Capitalist Hyperintelligence

On Accelerationism and Mimetic Theory

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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 Technology The Left The Right Theory

Right Marcuseanism

Herbert Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance” is often cited as the progenitor of the censorious left, but its real ideological heirs are now on the right.

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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 Theory Wild Theory

The Metamodern Turn: Toward a Theory of Trump-Era Liberal Culture

“Metamodernism” offers a lens for interpreting the contradictory impulses of liberalism in recent years.

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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.

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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 Theory

Liberalism’s Autoimmune Disorder: On “Cynical Theories,” Part 1

James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose characterize Theory as a “virus” attacking the liberal body politic.

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.