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Deadletter.net: Franz Kafka, Still A Turn On

http://www.deadletter.net/2009/08/franz-kafka-still-turn-on.html

Friday, August 14, 2009. Franz Kafka, Still A Turn On. Open to any chapter of The Trial. You can get it online here. Contact me at mark@deadletter.net. There's no blog comments feature because I like email more }. You can see my other blogs at Chumpchanger.com. For more on my background, you can go to MarkGimein.com. To keep up with what I write follow me here. You may find some shared sensibilities in the visual work of my partner, Charlotta Westergren. Karl Marx, The Market, And The Hidden Jew.

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Deadletter.net: Karl Marx, The Market, And The Hidden Jew

http://www.deadletter.net/2008/09/karl-marx-market-and-hidden-jew.html

Monday, September 29, 2008. Karl Marx, The Market, And The Hidden Jew. When I was in college, a frequently assigned text in literature and philosophy classes was Karl Marx's On The Jewish Question. About the relationship between political and religious freedom. I don't know if anybody ever got to the end of it- I certainly didn't then- and I have the feeling it wasn't many, because I don't recall anyone being especially shocked by the punchline:. Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money Very well then!

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Deadletter.net: "If I Could Save The Union Without Freeing Any Slave..."

http://www.deadletter.net/2008/09/if-i-could-save-union-without-freeing.html

Saturday, September 27, 2008. If I Could Save The Union Without Freeing Any Slave.". I feel like most of what I've read about Lincoln manages to avoid giving a direct answer to this question, which is incredibly disappointing, because it has to be the most interesting question about Lincoln. The debates help a lot in getting to this, because they make clear the context for what Lincoln told Greeley. Lincoln says about slavery:. Contact me at mark@deadletter.net. To keep up with what I write follow me here.

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Deadletter.net: We Know You All Too Well Here, Mr. Van Gogh

http://www.deadletter.net/2008/11/we-know-you-all-too-well-here-mr-van.html

Tuesday, November 4, 2008. We Know You All Too Well Here, Mr. Van Gogh. How can some of the greatest paintings of history also be the most boring? I found myself thinking this at the Museum of Modern Art's small Van Gogh show, while staring at The Night Cafe. A lesser known, and probably lesser, Van Gogh, let alone from other paintings I chanced on in a stroll through the museum, such as Giovanni Pistoletto's Man With Yellow Pants. Is Giovanni Pistoletto then a greater artist than Van Gogh?

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Deadletter.net: Ferris Bueller's Last Stand

http://www.deadletter.net/2009/08/ferris-buellers-last-stand.html

Friday, August 21, 2009. Ferris Bueller's Last Stand. One aim of this blog is to pick out unnoticed and interesting strands in the work of some of the world's great dead thinkers. I've already touched on Plato, Lincoln, Einstein, and, in my last post Kafka; so, as you might expect, there's no way I could avoid getting to John Hughes and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And we love them for their hard won victories over themselves. Except that, really, we don't. Or, at any rate, I don't. The most clever nihilist...

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Deadletter.net: A Useful Antidote To Obvious Ideas And The Idea Of The Obvious

http://www.deadletter.net/2008/10/useful-antidote-to-obvious-ideas-and.html

Sunday, October 12, 2008. A Useful Antidote To Obvious Ideas And The Idea Of The Obvious. For the general reader to find just how dramatically simple the insight that motivated Einstein was, and how accessible the "special theory"- that's the one with e=mc. The version that most people get of the theory of relativity tends to stop when the eyes glaze over and before it gets to the interesting part. Obviously this is impossible. Or not. Up to Einstein, it seemed that way, and physicists worked hard to...

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Deadletter.net: Francis Bacon--Or, Of Bloggishness

http://www.deadletter.net/2009/07/francis-bacon-or-of-bloggishness.html

Tuesday, July 28, 2009. Francis Bacon- Or, Of Bloggishness. The standard complaint of writers in the era of the blogging culture is that readers demand brevity and immediacy and no longer have any patience. Writers want readers who pay attention, and rarely get them. But is this entirely a bad thing? A little while ago I went back to Francis Bacon's. And what strikes the modern reader is just how bloggy. Said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.". Contact me at mark@deadletter.net.

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Deadletter.net: The Malthusian Malady

http://www.deadletter.net/2011/01/malthusian-malady.html

Thursday, January 13, 2011. Of the writers who can safely be called much quoted but little read, the economist/philosopher T.R. Malthus sits near the head of the list. The basic argument of his Essay on the Principle of Population. Sussmilch himself, however, did not subscribe to a theory anything like Malthus's. Actually, the opposite: Sussmilch believed (and I get this from a turn of the century English summary. Little of Sussmilch's work has been translated into English, though you can get the original.

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Deadletter.net: Plato, Ancient Escape Artist

http://www.deadletter.net/2008/09/lot-of-people-seem-to-think-that.html

Saturday, September 20, 2008. Plato, Ancient Escape Artist. Plato is a whole lot more interesting than that. I read the Gorgias. Here the initial positions have gotten totally reversed. Socrates is the one who started out saying he doesn't care whom he persuades or how many people are with him. But now he's tweaking Callicles; he's saying, "Well, if you want to persuade people to let you govern, you're gonna have to start talking about what's just and good.". If I died because I have no powers of flatter...