Persistence Twelve months ago I was approaching Christmas and the end of a liberating period of long service leave. It was a period of leave that rejuvenated my writing and my living. It returned a sense of adventure and courage to my cultural life. I found a way through this blog to weave together myContinueContinue reading “More reflections on 2017: persistence, terror and Das Schloss”
Tag Archives: violence
The return of sacred violence
“Central to both torture and terror is the political psychology of degradation” Paul Kahn, Sacred violence: torture, terror and sovereignty Violent imitation, which makes adversaries more and more alike, is at the root of all myths and cultures. Rene Girard, Battling to the end. It is a characteristic of our time that as political authorityContinueContinue reading “The return of sacred violence”
Massacres in history
As the violence and brewing disorder of our times disturbs us, we can readily fall into a comforting delusion: either our liberal minds have conquered the violent instincts of the human animal, or our modern ideologies (whether Nazism, Marxism, Imperialism, Neo-Conservatism or Islamism) or our powerful nation states have a peculiar talent for blood-curdling murderContinueContinue reading “Massacres in history”