On Human Overpopulation
A recurring theme among a number of widely divergent political and environmental movements is that of human overpopulation. Often, the claim that there are too many humans has conspicuous racist overtones and is associated with ecofascism, but claims of overpopulation are also made by people with very different political ideas. Much of the popular overpopulation discourse appears to be quite ignorant about what โoverpopulationโ even means, however, and about what it might imply, so I thought it might be useful to write a few words about this. What even is โoverpopulationโ? โOverpopulationโ is a relative term โ it means that...
Lessons from the Ongoing Disaster (for the Next One)
Presumably, you are aware that weโre in the middle of a disaster. Thatโs unpleasant โ to say the least โ but itโs also quite instructive. There is much we can learn from the ongoing disaster and humanityโs responses to it. But whether we can use those lessons to avert the even bigger disaster looming on the horizon is questionable. Rather, it seems that the most important thing that we can learn from the corona crisis is that we as a species may very well be incapable of avoiding catastrophy. ignore and deny For months, the general attitude of most governments...
Fascism, Anti-fascism, and Violence
Surprisingly many people seem to think that anti-fascists are just as bad as the fascists they oppose. (According to one rather unreliable source even Chomsky recently made critical comments about โAntifaโ.) One would think that even a little bit of historical knowledge would prevent such strange ideas, but apparently this isnโt the case. Criticism of the anti-fascists and their tactics comes in โ roughly โ two kinds. One kind argues that violent tactics are bad because of their bad consequences. The other kind of argument appeals to (implicit) principles rather than to consequences. This short essay discusses โ and rejects...
Whatโs there to be proud of?
Pride plays an important role in most โ if not all โ ideologies on the right of the political spectrum. National pride and racial pride are the most obvious examples. The former is, of course, the core feature of nationalism or patriotism; the latter is the foundation of racism. The dominant kind of pride in contemporary right-wing thought seems to be civilizational pride, however. That is, one of the key aspects of the alt-right and right-wing populism as well as more mainstream contemporary conservatism is pride in Western civilization. This pride in Western civilization, letโs call it โWestern prideโ, is...