Claim: "Rousseauianism's plateauing obsequiously" is the only proposition in the English language that contains both
(1) a truth
(2) and four consecutive vowels in every word that it's made up of.
Here's a link to the article: archive.org/details/Haus...
And a useful summary (in German): geschichtedergegenwart.ch/gender-studi...
Roughly, Hausen argues that post-Enlightenment discourse gave rise to a rigidly domestic essence of femininity, thereby stabilising the public-private distinction along gender lines. The title translates to "Polarisation of 'gender roles': Reflecting the separation of work and family life".
I just finished Karin Hausen's 1976 article "Die Polarisierung der 'Geschlechtscharaktere': Eine Spiegelung der Dissoziation von Erwerbs- und Familienleben".
Is anyone aware of an English translation? It's influential in the German context, yet fairly unknown beyond that.
I'm super looking forward to your book, JP! So refreshing to see metanormative theory put to practice
Paragraph from page 79 of Cao Xueqin, "A Dream of Red Mansions" (Peking: Foreign Language Press 1978)
Power phrases to impress your colleagues at the next post-work aperitivo
Really nice to see this piece published (co-authored with the great @yvette-wang.bsky.social). It's basically an endorsement of counter-paradigmatic research disguised as a symposium report ;-)
exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/ex...
From the Economist, 16 April 2025
Within ten years, England lost close to 75% of people identifying as "English-only" and almost tripled the percentage of "British-only" – simply because the census changed the order of these options. Sounds sus. Why wouldn't the numbers track (though potentially exaggerate) a real shift?
Unassuming still life of an amber beverage and an e-reader against the background of an IKEA table
From the interstices between workweek and weekend:
"Thought arose in the course of the liberation from terrible nature (...). Pleasure is nature's revenge. In pleasure, human beings divest themselves from thought, escape from civilisation."
(Adorno/Horkheimer, DoE, Stanford 2008, p. 82)
Article about a local brewery that seems to sell its beer on every corner, in the Freiburger Wochenschau
Just a local newspaper using "on every corner" on every corner.
"Ganter Beer is on every corner in Freiburg. And that's exactly what the brewery celebrates, with the slogan 'Drink local on every corner' for a campaign that celebrates local Ganter on every corner."
The FT dips a toe in the dialectic of enlightenment:
"In ever scarier times, it is soothing to believe that a secret plan is at work, even if it is a distasteful plan. ... liberal societies struggle to understand — or even to credit the existence of — irrational actors."
on.ft.com/4i6islx
Screenshot of an article in the Financial Times, which contains an excerpt of a message from the White House inviting Americans to "bolster their financial knowledge".
On 1 April, the White House celebrated the beginning of the "Financial Literacy Month". Is this all just the punch line of a very elaborate practical joke?
(2/2) "[...] The warfare among men in war and in peace is the key to the insatiability of the species and to its ensuing practical attitudes, as well as to the categories and methods of scientific intelligence in which nature appears increasingly under the aspect of its most effective exploitation."
Horkheimer on the politics of galactic ambitions in late capitalism:
(1/2) "[M]an's avidity to extend his power in two infinities, the microcosm and the universe, does not arise directly from his own nature, but from the structure of society."
(Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, 1947/1974, p. 74)
(3/3) "... and it’s certainly the most brilliant and rich defense of left-wing ideologies that have been on the rise in the last half-century. And I've benefited from reading Marcuse."
Weirdly, the last sentence is omitted from the transcript.
(2/3) "I think you have to read Marcuse for catastrophic errors in judgment and for a kind of repulsive politics in outcome. There are certain insights that can be salvaged from his work,...
(1/3) Good news, critical theorists! You might make it onto the syllabus of Christopher Rufo's seminar on the decline of Western civ
"Last question: You’re in charge of a curriculum, and you have to include one author you are opposed to ... Who do you pick?
Rufo: Without a doubt, Herbert Marcuse."
The webform of a large German funding body asks me to add "last-name prefixes". Among the options are:
- "Baron vom"
- "Ritter von"
- "dell'Isola"
- "L'Homme"
and of course
- "Freiherr v.u.z."
I'm feeling seen, though I'm mildly displeased that it won't allow me to specify the acreage of my estate
Two days to go!
Polls in Hungary show Tisza at 41% and Fidesz at 37%
Cheered myself up by looking at recent polling for the Hungarian election next year.
Sorry, my phrasing was imprecise. I should have written: "Among all those who voted in 2025 but who did not vote in 2021 etc."
The numbers match the ones given by the main German broadcaster:
www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/...
Illustration of voter shifts in Germany's federal election, highlighting the bloc of voters who did not vote in 2021
Among those who did not cast a ballot in Germany's previous federal election, close to a majority voted for the hard-right:
48% AfD
24% CDU
11% BSW
8% Left
7% SPD
3% Greens
Liberal democracy depends on passive disillusionment.
Saying you didn't intend the pun when you actually did is not dialectics!
(Addendum: the campaign posters of CDU and AfD would probably make it onto the list but there are few-to-none in the neighbourhood I live in, which is dominated by the ominous face of #3 as if it was a local idol, ready to haunt you if you don't surrender your vote to its contentless creed.)
Greens campaign poster
#1 Positive Affirmations.
"Zuversicht" means confidence or optimism. Which is what you need in copious amounts when you're running for chancellor while polling below 15%.
FDP campaign poster
#2 A Man Lost in the Woods.
"Last seen on 6 November 2024. If you have any information, please contact the FDP."
Volt campaign poster
#3 Just a Face.
This is literally just a face.
MLPD campaign poster
#4 "Become part of the rebellion."
It's easy: vote, like, and wait for the means of production to be transferred into public ownership. (An even more asinine MLPD poster reads: "Make Socialism Great Again")
