Tom Vandeputte
@tomvandeputte.bsky.social
Philosophy and critical theory | Professor at Sandberg Institute Amsterdam | Working on catastrophe, pessimism and utopian imagination | Books-in-progress: Benjamin, Anders, Weil
Pinned
Tom Vandeputte
@tomvandeputte.bsky.social
· Nov 20
A piece that came out in New German Critique sometime between leaving Twitter and rejoining this place: "Continuity as Catastrophe: Origins of a Thesis in Walter Benjamin."
read.dukeupress.edu/new-german-c...
Unfortunately no longer open access, but feel free to PM for a copy.
read.dukeupress.edu/new-german-c...
Unfortunately no longer open access, but feel free to PM for a copy.
An absolutely devastating loss. Such a lucid thinker and speaker, maintaining his enthusiasm and love of the age-old game despite his obvious struggles. Rest in peace.
GM Daniel Naroditsky passed away. He was a talented chess player, commentator, and educator. FIDE extends its deepest condolences to Daniel’s family and loved ones.
October 21, 2025 at 12:32 PM
An absolutely devastating loss. Such a lucid thinker and speaker, maintaining his enthusiasm and love of the age-old game despite his obvious struggles. Rest in peace.
Reposted by Tom Vandeputte
“Facts of murder and even genocide […] are the themes of preference of this obscene language of denial. [E]ven this denial retains an element of sadistic sweetness: the denial itself becomes a kind of ‘second murder’, eliminating even the undesired facts of murder from the world.”
October 13, 2025 at 2:47 PM
“Facts of murder and even genocide […] are the themes of preference of this obscene language of denial. [E]ven this denial retains an element of sadistic sweetness: the denial itself becomes a kind of ‘second murder’, eliminating even the undesired facts of murder from the world.”
Günther Anders (1989): “The goal of ‘disinformation’ consists in the emphatic suppression or denial of facts that have come to light or can come to light, but ought not to […]. The goal is […] to keep the interlocutor from seeing certain facts or, once seen, to keep them from bearing these in mind.”
October 13, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Günther Anders (1989): “The goal of ‘disinformation’ consists in the emphatic suppression or denial of facts that have come to light or can come to light, but ought not to […]. The goal is […] to keep the interlocutor from seeing certain facts or, once seen, to keep them from bearing these in mind.”
Reposted by Tom Vandeputte
“Official history is believing murderers at their word.”
- Simone Weil
- Simone Weil
August 12, 2025 at 3:33 AM
“Official history is believing murderers at their word.”
- Simone Weil
- Simone Weil
Eighty years since Hiroshima – I remember the strangely superficial terms in which the event was discussed in history classes: as a curious moral dilemma, an exercise in moral reasoning and the calculus of human life/death, quick to pass over its monstrosity
August 6, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Eighty years since Hiroshima – I remember the strangely superficial terms in which the event was discussed in history classes: as a curious moral dilemma, an exercise in moral reasoning and the calculus of human life/death, quick to pass over its monstrosity
“The absurdity […] that the human being can desire – and does desire – more from the world than it offers.” (GA)
August 6, 2025 at 8:37 AM
“The absurdity […] that the human being can desire – and does desire – more from the world than it offers.” (GA)
Günther Anders’ writings from the early 1940s refer to a primordial, “extreme” concept of freedom that repeats itself in the modern: a “freedom without consequences” - the liberatory experience of unaccountability and impunity that he may have recognised in fascism
August 4, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Günther Anders’ writings from the early 1940s refer to a primordial, “extreme” concept of freedom that repeats itself in the modern: a “freedom without consequences” - the liberatory experience of unaccountability and impunity that he may have recognised in fascism
“Nothing dies as slowly as a category” – Günther Anders, writing in 1940-41, on the persistence of the category of progress (which, in turn, testifies to the slow death of the category of providence)
August 1, 2025 at 8:04 AM
“Nothing dies as slowly as a category” – Günther Anders, writing in 1940-41, on the persistence of the category of progress (which, in turn, testifies to the slow death of the category of providence)
Günther Anders’ one-page eulogy to Benjamin focuses entirely on his conception of language and its critique: “The distinction between the truth of the matter and the correctness of syntax left him cold; so deeply was he convinced that, also in language, the untrue could never find the right syntax.”
July 23, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Günther Anders’ one-page eulogy to Benjamin focuses entirely on his conception of language and its critique: “The distinction between the truth of the matter and the correctness of syntax left him cold; so deeply was he convinced that, also in language, the untrue could never find the right syntax.”
Anders’ sharp critique of Adorno is a critique of form: “I believe I detect a tone of revenge, of contempt, of violation in your style. […] Because you forgo political action […] you attempt, with linguistic means, to produce something resembling action, to at least inflict something on the reader.”
July 12, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Anders’ sharp critique of Adorno is a critique of form: “I believe I detect a tone of revenge, of contempt, of violation in your style. […] Because you forgo political action […] you attempt, with linguistic means, to produce something resembling action, to at least inflict something on the reader.”
Of all the thinkers in the orbit of the Frankfurt School, the most careful reader of Anders seems to have been Bloch, who was deeply impressed by his “book of mourning” (the first volume of The Obsolescence of Mankind) and especially the Hiroshima journals, which he called Anders’ “book of peace”
July 7, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Of all the thinkers in the orbit of the Frankfurt School, the most careful reader of Anders seems to have been Bloch, who was deeply impressed by his “book of mourning” (the first volume of The Obsolescence of Mankind) and especially the Hiroshima journals, which he called Anders’ “book of peace”
Günther Anders writing to Ernst Bloch in 1959: “Adorno […] regards me as an unpleasant piece of furniture, an uncontrollable one – we don’t make use of each other”
July 6, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Günther Anders writing to Ernst Bloch in 1959: “Adorno […] regards me as an unpleasant piece of furniture, an uncontrollable one – we don’t make use of each other”
Summer reading from years ago that is back on this year's reading list: early 20C histories/theories of depression
June 20, 2025 at 7:55 AM
Summer reading from years ago that is back on this year's reading list: early 20C histories/theories of depression
On protest and demonstration:
These are not “protests,” they are demonstrations. We’re not asking them for anything other than to fuck off.
It’s a demonstration of resistance, of counterpower, of the threat of ungovernability, of the emergent/potential backlash against exploitation and abuses by the ruling class.
It’s a demonstration of resistance, of counterpower, of the threat of ungovernability, of the emergent/potential backlash against exploitation and abuses by the ruling class.
June 11, 2025 at 8:51 AM
On protest and demonstration:
A striking theme in early 20C French thought that never seems to have been developed: the attempt to base a materialist account of the origin of human societies / social forms not on the need for food and shelter but the need to sleep
June 6, 2025 at 8:17 AM
A striking theme in early 20C French thought that never seems to have been developed: the attempt to base a materialist account of the origin of human societies / social forms not on the need for food and shelter but the need to sleep
Even at its most saturated, our apocalyptic imagination pales in comparison to that of a random fifteenth-century monk
June 5, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Even at its most saturated, our apocalyptic imagination pales in comparison to that of a random fifteenth-century monk
Melanie Klein is so good on envy and its latent destructive impulse: “envy [is] the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys something – the envious impulse being to take away or to spoil it”
June 3, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Melanie Klein is so good on envy and its latent destructive impulse: “envy [is] the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys something – the envious impulse being to take away or to spoil it”
Günther Anders’ theory of first drafts: “To hope that the text arrives directly would be naive. […] You may never expect that your first draft produces the text or something resembling a text. At first this draft is only pulp […] which, in the best cases, appears to desire that it *becomes* a text.”
May 29, 2025 at 8:47 AM
Günther Anders’ theory of first drafts: “To hope that the text arrives directly would be naive. […] You may never expect that your first draft produces the text or something resembling a text. At first this draft is only pulp […] which, in the best cases, appears to desire that it *becomes* a text.”
Greasy spoon breakfast cafés are easily the best thing about the UK
May 24, 2025 at 9:08 AM
Greasy spoon breakfast cafés are easily the best thing about the UK
Simone Weil arguing that laws do not demand to be respected (but only connect cause and effect quasi-naturally): "Written laws do not demand at all that actions conform themselves to what they prescribe. [...] When I steal, I will be imprisoned; when I put my hand in a fire, I will burn myself."
May 20, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Simone Weil arguing that laws do not demand to be respected (but only connect cause and effect quasi-naturally): "Written laws do not demand at all that actions conform themselves to what they prescribe. [...] When I steal, I will be imprisoned; when I put my hand in a fire, I will burn myself."
Looks promising:
Save the date:
Fanon Today: Contemporary Struggles and Theoretical Perspectives
International Symposium
Berlin, July 22-23, 2025
organized by @vethompson.bsky.social, @raulzelik.bsky.social & me
Fanon Today: Contemporary Struggles and Theoretical Perspectives
International Symposium
Berlin, July 22-23, 2025
organized by @vethompson.bsky.social, @raulzelik.bsky.social & me
May 19, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Looks promising:
Reportedly the largest public demo in the Netherlands over the last two decades, with up to 100k protestors heading toward the seat of the International Court of Justice in The Hague
May 18, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reportedly the largest public demo in the Netherlands over the last two decades, with up to 100k protestors heading toward the seat of the International Court of Justice in The Hague
Today at 5pm, for those in Amsterdam:
May 8, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Today at 5pm, for those in Amsterdam:
Benjamin’s definition of politics as ‘experimentation with the explosive “world”’ seems to describe the stakes of this political endgame quite aptly
April 9, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Benjamin’s definition of politics as ‘experimentation with the explosive “world”’ seems to describe the stakes of this political endgame quite aptly
Today at 5! Open to all - feel free to stop by if you’re in Amsterdam
April 3, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Today at 5! Open to all - feel free to stop by if you’re in Amsterdam