Last year on this date I claimed, “I think it’s safe to say that, at this moment, where we find ourselves now, we need good reggae more than ever.” Plus ça change….
University decline is like climate change. It has multiple causes… [and] each cause works slowly enough to allow most people to stay in denial about their effects.
We talk a lot about the limits of critique. I’m more worried about the absence of critique. I mean institutional critique, including self-critique. That’s how professions get out of blind alleys and advance.
Stuart Hall’s Voice – David Scott
For several generations to come Stuart Hall’s voice will remain a key part of conversations on the left.
I think it’s safe to say that, at this moment, where we find ourselves now, we need good reggae more than ever.
I think that understanding a particular philosophical position means that you try your best to understand the particular geographical and cultural space it emerges from.
I often have to think about Brecht: “Ah, what an age it is / When to speak of trees is almost a crime / For it is a kind of silence about injustice!”
The default world of literary fiction is a very professional class, with occasional sprinkles of They Closed the Mill and Now We’re All on OxyContin. I wanted to be more matter of fact about post-industrial small town life.
Paradoxically one way to cover a conspiracy is to present it as a conspiracy theory and count on the fact that it will not be taken seriously.
I spoke of the exodus and of the repatrination. I quoted Prince Far-I: ‘We’re moving out of Babylon/ One destination, ina Ithiopia …’, I quoted. ‘Ithiopia, the tyrants are falling/ Ithiopia, Britain the great is falling…’