“You can’t undo racial critique with more racial critique”: Discussion of Adolph Reed Jr and Kenneth Warren’s *Black Studies, Cultural Politics, and the Evasion of Inequality*: nonsite.org/black-studie...
Terry Eagleton on working class Salford and modern British culture (though surprised that Mark E Smith does not get a mention): unherd.com/2026/04/how-...
Thank you. Glad you like the columns.
“Accountability demands that people & institutions accept responsibility for their actions. It also requires people to be able to scrutinise & challenge institutions & individuals with power. Both sides of this dyad have decayed.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...
Nighttime photo of the moon seen through blossom
Sunday photo
Blossom and moon
“Accountability demands that people & institutions accept responsibility for their actions. It also requires people to be able to scrutinise & challenge institutions & individuals with power. Both sides of this dyad have decayed.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...
Photo of the Parliament building in Budapest at night reflected in the moat outside
Sunday photo
Parliament building in Budapest at night reflected in the moat outside (and entirely random choice today 😂)
“And who lost the most? The Iranian people, who have not only suffered the destruction of homes, workplaces, hospitals… but remain under the heel of theocratic rule, their struggle for freedom cynically exploited, then abandoned.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...
Yes, he opens with Camus' book and wanders a lot from there. He isn't wrong to take great replacement theory seriously, but he doesn't really understand its contemporary incarnations. And when it becomes an explanation for everything, it becomes meaningless.
And then there is this: “What separated the Sanders and Trump voters? Great replacement theory.”
For Kendi, as for its advocates, the great replacement theory becomes a one-stop explanation for whatever needs explaining. It renders the concept empty and the history meaningless.
Review coming. 3/
The brutal crackdown on gangs by El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, has made his country “a new cradle of great replacement politics” because “gangs are being stamped as replacers”. OK… 2/
So, I learn from Ibram X Kendi’s new book *Chain of Ideas* that Jim Crow was “justified” by “the great replacement theory”. Underlying Nazi antisemitism was the “great replacement theory”. And underlying Brexit, too. 1/
bsky.app/profile/kena...
And who lost the most? The Iranian people, who have not only suffered destruction of homes, workplaces, hospitals, universities, power plants, etc, but with the theocratic regime still in power, and their struggle for freedom cynically exploited, then abandoned, by America and Israel. 3/
Who lost the least? the Iranian regime, its leadership decapitated, the country battered, but not just surviving, but surviving with greater control, especially as its 10-point plan includes control over, and financial gain from, the Strait of Hormuz. 2/
The question “Who won in the Iran war?” seems to me ill-framed. Because nearly everyone (apart from China and global arms manufacturers) has lost to some degree. A better question may be, “Who lost the least?” 1/
And reviews in the Spectator and the New Statesman by @twelves.bsky.social and @johnmerrick.bsky.social
spectator.com/article/did-...
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2026/0...
“Citing AI-generated fake “quotes” is obviously inexcusable. But… for that money, who cares what Politics Joe, or even Ben Sixsmith, makes of your argument?”
Such cynicism seems as worrying as the alleged fabrication
unherd.com/2026/03/matt...
“Dialogue came, in Habermas’ work, to replace social struggle, almost as if humans could talk their way to a better, more democratic future.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...
Photo of the Cambrian hills at sunset
Sunday photo
Cambrian hills at sunset
“The ghost that haunted his work – the question of how to bring about social transformation in an age with diminished collective agency – is one that today confronts us all.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...
At this rate, it won’t be long before America is inviting Iran to join its war against Iran www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
“Israel must control the territory up to the Litani River and resettle it with Jewish communities… The same logic applies elsewhere… the Jordan River was never meant to be the eastern border of the Land of Israel.” On war and the expansion of Israel: www.jpost.com/opinion/arti...
“Who is this memorial for? It’s not for us…. They’re passing it off as a piece of virtue-signalling in our names but it’s not for us.” Grenfell and the destruction of memory: observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
“Literalism was once the province of the religious… Today, literalism is increasingly embedded in the secular world.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...
