November 30, 2020

Interesting Things on the Internet: November 30th 2020 Edition

  • David Graeber on the Extreme 'Centre'.
  • Prosthetic Village. "The Great War left “more than 750,000 ex-servicemen permanently disabled” in Britain alone, and specialized institutions arose to accommodate them. If, as historian Annette Becker concludes, the Great War was “a laboratory for the twentieth century: a field experiment or test site where violence could be carried out,” this war laboratory also produced architectural experiments when the battle was supposedly over. Architecture was enlisted in Britain’s post-war reconstruction effort. Mawson’s plans became part of this collective endeavor. One year after the publication of Imperial Obligation, the residents of Lancashire county acknowledged their “obligation” (as the architect termed it) and undertook the creation of two memorials: one conceived to be a commemorative stone monument, and the other an entire village." Really interesting. Although it didn't really build a village, the area is a few minutes' walk from Lancaster station. Maybe that was on the edge of the city in 1918, but it's not what village brings to mind and is more integrated into the city. It doesn't seem very visible these days, sadly—I spent three years in Lancaster at Uni, and had friends who lived in that area and had no idea about it until today.
  • Rebecca Solnit: On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway "We all know that you do better bringing people out of delusion by being kind and inviting than by mocking them, but that’s inviting them to come over, which is not the same thing as heading in their direction." A good companion piece to the David Graeber link.
  • Nina Simon: OFBYFOR ALL. A great talk about improving and encouraging diversity in your organisation.
  • Ecological Politics for the Working Class "For the environmental movement to expand beyond the professional class and establish a working-class base for itself, it cannot rely on austerity, shaming, and individualistic solutions as its pillars. It also cannot place so much emphasis on knowledge of the science (belief or denial). It has to mobilize around environmentally beneficial policies that appeal to the material interests of the vast majority of the working class mired in stagnant wages, debt, and job insecurity." Skip over the "Part 1" and "Part 2" section, nobody needs 7000+ words of preamble, but "Part 3" is good. On a related note, are there any good proposals for alternatives to a State monopoly for the option when taking things into public ownership? State monopolies are lots better than capitalist monopolies, but there's still a risk of them stagnating. How do we let alternative and more progressive solutions emerge in those situations?
Posted by Adrian at November 30, 2020 12:47 PM | TrackBack

This blog post is on the personal blog of Adrian McEwen. If you want to explore the site a bit further, it might be worth having a look at the most recent entries or look through the archives or categories over on the left.

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