Vapula
@vapulaa.bsky.social
Philosophy sans faction, mainly Lacan, German Idealism, and "post-structuralism"
Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinæ
Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinæ
and one may point to analytic philosophy of race and feminist philosophy as exceptions, and yes they are; I'm of course talking about analytic philosophy as a social and institutional effect, a hegemonic institutional ideology, and fortunately the old guard of it seems to dwindle by the day.
The folks who say there's no analytic-continental divide give off a disavowal akin to (in form, not social severity) those unaffected by race who deny continuing problems, despite a wealth of history showing the one-sided abuse (Oxford, Rorty's reception, the "science wars" libel & betrayal, etc.)/2
July 13, 2025 at 6:15 PM
and one may point to analytic philosophy of race and feminist philosophy as exceptions, and yes they are; I'm of course talking about analytic philosophy as a social and institutional effect, a hegemonic institutional ideology, and fortunately the old guard of it seems to dwindle by the day.
The folks who say there's no analytic-continental divide give off a disavowal akin to (in form, not social severity) those unaffected by race who deny continuing problems, despite a wealth of history showing the one-sided abuse (Oxford, Rorty's reception, the "science wars" libel & betrayal, etc.)/2
July 13, 2025 at 6:02 PM
The folks who say there's no analytic-continental divide give off a disavowal akin to (in form, not social severity) those unaffected by race who deny continuing problems, despite a wealth of history showing the one-sided abuse (Oxford, Rorty's reception, the "science wars" libel & betrayal, etc.)/2
Sorta people who cope read Locke, wishing he's actually universalist in his use of terms like liberty, despite everything coming down to self-serving reasoning for the owning classes (which he's quite open about). This more or less applies for the entire early liberal tradition if not cherry-picking
April 30, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Sorta people who cope read Locke, wishing he's actually universalist in his use of terms like liberty, despite everything coming down to self-serving reasoning for the owning classes (which he's quite open about). This more or less applies for the entire early liberal tradition if not cherry-picking
It seems the beatings will continue until morale improves (normalcy being cut out of today's political vernacular)
I think people need to get rid of the idea of a “return to normal” whatever that even means. The political and economic situation of the world with climate change getting worse is not going to be less chaotic
April 26, 2025 at 1:24 AM
It seems the beatings will continue until morale improves (normalcy being cut out of today's political vernacular)
And people still diss psychoanalysis, as though reactionary meatheads don't vindicate it with every passing day
Dear god they genuinely have a mental association between "international trading partners" and "ex wives I hate who just want my money", how did this never occur to me before
April 10, 2025 at 10:25 PM
And people still diss psychoanalysis, as though reactionary meatheads don't vindicate it with every passing day
Reposted by Vapula
idk maybe making the cult knowledge-shaping experience available everywhere all the time in your pocket instead of just at the compound of some wildeyed creep who chronically undersalts the food may just be one of those things it takes a couple generations to recover from
April 9, 2025 at 9:07 PM
idk maybe making the cult knowledge-shaping experience available everywhere all the time in your pocket instead of just at the compound of some wildeyed creep who chronically undersalts the food may just be one of those things it takes a couple generations to recover from
Reposted by Vapula
On the US military shooting protestors:
It is entirely plausible that the US military will shoot at protestors if given the order* This is not an indictment of individual personnel, but rather a structural critique of institutions.
*To discuss what "the order" is later in thread
It is entirely plausible that the US military will shoot at protestors if given the order* This is not an indictment of individual personnel, but rather a structural critique of institutions.
*To discuss what "the order" is later in thread
April 9, 2025 at 12:32 AM
On the US military shooting protestors:
It is entirely plausible that the US military will shoot at protestors if given the order* This is not an indictment of individual personnel, but rather a structural critique of institutions.
*To discuss what "the order" is later in thread
It is entirely plausible that the US military will shoot at protestors if given the order* This is not an indictment of individual personnel, but rather a structural critique of institutions.
*To discuss what "the order" is later in thread
Reposted by Vapula
has anyone seen the executive committee of the bourgeousie lately
April 7, 2025 at 2:13 AM
has anyone seen the executive committee of the bourgeousie lately
Reposted by Vapula
Writing is thinking. We get students to write so that they learn how to think and use their brains. Using LLMs to do your work is like trying to be an athlete by getting someone else to do your training for you.
What is the point of what we do if the interactions are not authentic? It is evident that students are increasingly turning to LLMs to "help" them do their work, with such dreary results - from handwaving generalizations that are rhetorically fluent but vacuous to outright hallucinations.
March 24, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Writing is thinking. We get students to write so that they learn how to think and use their brains. Using LLMs to do your work is like trying to be an athlete by getting someone else to do your training for you.
It'll be interesting seeing how political scientists handle the topic of these indexes — the events of late evidently show how worthless or misguided so much of that data is — autocracy doesn't just fall out of the sky and "democracies" don't just get brain aneurysms out of nowhere.
i know the "democracy index" is western propaganda but it's going to be funny as hell to see the united states fall like a hundred points on the list
March 24, 2025 at 11:28 PM
It'll be interesting seeing how political scientists handle the topic of these indexes — the events of late evidently show how worthless or misguided so much of that data is — autocracy doesn't just fall out of the sky and "democracies" don't just get brain aneurysms out of nowhere.
Reposted by Vapula
I think a lot of insidious and self-sabotaging bagagge inherited from the '60s and '70s New Left (which came directly from its libertarian assumptions) is finally being rejected.
I think the reason that ‘civic duty socialism’, or ‘socialism with small c conservative characteristics’ is having a moment in left of center circles is that the long hangover of the 60s, where the assumption was that the median citizen would be a square too trusting, too patriotic, is finally over.
February 24, 2025 at 4:06 AM
I think a lot of insidious and self-sabotaging bagagge inherited from the '60s and '70s New Left (which came directly from its libertarian assumptions) is finally being rejected.
Reposted by Vapula
Have shared this before, but will share it again as it is related to this point (and it has been helpful for keeping me motivated in these times).
February 24, 2025 at 2:14 AM
Have shared this before, but will share it again as it is related to this point (and it has been helpful for keeping me motivated in these times).
If anything, I'd be curious to see ruthless subversion published: Foucaultian power applied to constructive theorizing of democratic centralism, Derrida's critique of Messianism turned in on itself and balanced w/ the non-messianic Chinese Marxism, Lacan's discourses are an obvious choice, etc.
Same, I appreciate Rockhill's emphasis against the imperial core and left-intelligencia sympathies therein, but I think plenty of the authors he throws aside are very useful under subversive readings. Too often disillusionment leads to split thinking that throws the baby out with the bathwater.
Chris Cutrone says some really intelligent things at times that I can totally get on board with…but then he’ll say seriously badshit wild crap that I just cannot square. Similar (but for different reasons) how I feel about Gabriel Rockhill.
February 23, 2025 at 8:48 PM
If anything, I'd be curious to see ruthless subversion published: Foucaultian power applied to constructive theorizing of democratic centralism, Derrida's critique of Messianism turned in on itself and balanced w/ the non-messianic Chinese Marxism, Lacan's discourses are an obvious choice, etc.
Same, I appreciate Rockhill's emphasis against the imperial core and left-intelligencia sympathies therein, but I think plenty of the authors he throws aside are very useful under subversive readings. Too often disillusionment leads to split thinking that throws the baby out with the bathwater.
Chris Cutrone says some really intelligent things at times that I can totally get on board with…but then he’ll say seriously badshit wild crap that I just cannot square. Similar (but for different reasons) how I feel about Gabriel Rockhill.
February 23, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Same, I appreciate Rockhill's emphasis against the imperial core and left-intelligencia sympathies therein, but I think plenty of the authors he throws aside are very useful under subversive readings. Too often disillusionment leads to split thinking that throws the baby out with the bathwater.
Reposted by Vapula
Howard Zinn: "To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. 1/4
February 4, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Howard Zinn: "To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. 1/4
Reposted by Vapula
Education ministry in Germany (Bavaria…) does not grant climate activist their teacher license because the term profit maximization used by the activist is "related to communist ideology" seen as "irreconcilable with a liberal democratic order." 🤡
Bayern: Lehramtsstudentin wegen Klimaschutzaktivitäten vom Schuldienst ausgeschlossen
Eine 28-jährige Lehramtsstudentin darf ihr Referendariat in Bayern nicht antreten. Laut einem Medienbericht hängt dies mit ihren politischen Aktivitäten zum Klimaschutz zusammen. Auch Wahlplakate der ...
www.spiegel.de
January 27, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Education ministry in Germany (Bavaria…) does not grant climate activist their teacher license because the term profit maximization used by the activist is "related to communist ideology" seen as "irreconcilable with a liberal democratic order." 🤡
Clearly the people being defeated by the language police just don't have enough aura
i think people who complain about the language police are, by and large, just cowards. say whatever you want! no one is going to stop you. but people may judge you or even, if you say the wrong thing in front of the wrong person, pop you in the mouth. but that’s life!
January 28, 2025 at 7:49 AM
Clearly the people being defeated by the language police just don't have enough aura
The legacy of the cold war and the financial position of the US in the world made this sort of thing predictable, it's been foreseen for decades, but it would implicate all the liberals here who are incapable of taking systemic accountability. The actual left, which doesn't exist here, is vindicated
the depressing thing about what's happening and to come is how fucking unnecessary all of it was. no war forced us into this, no massive recession. bunch of bored morons pushed the "break everything" button because of the man on the tv and the people on their phone told them, and people will die.
January 28, 2025 at 12:43 AM
The legacy of the cold war and the financial position of the US in the world made this sort of thing predictable, it's been foreseen for decades, but it would implicate all the liberals here who are incapable of taking systemic accountability. The actual left, which doesn't exist here, is vindicated
In America, "God" is a quaint little shorthand for Capital & Power. To the extent that they are American, Americans don't believe in God, simply Mammon.
Y’all need to stop treating American evangelicalism as a religion and start understanding it as a permission structure
January 21, 2025 at 8:08 PM
In America, "God" is a quaint little shorthand for Capital & Power. To the extent that they are American, Americans don't believe in God, simply Mammon.
Reposted by Vapula
Consider the remarkable charity many philosophers show in refusing strong claims for or against theism, free will, physicalism, realism, etc. Compare the lack of charity among proponents of moral responsibility: "I *might* be making an error, but I choose to err on the side of unjustified harm."
January 19, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Consider the remarkable charity many philosophers show in refusing strong claims for or against theism, free will, physicalism, realism, etc. Compare the lack of charity among proponents of moral responsibility: "I *might* be making an error, but I choose to err on the side of unjustified harm."
Finally more of the hill I'm willing to die on that began as a hunch
A Social History of Analytic Philosophy can now be pre-ordered direct from @versobooks.bsky.social
www.versobooks.com/en-gb/produc...
www.versobooks.com/en-gb/produc...
A Social History of Analytic Philosophy
Analytic philosophy is the dominant form of philosophy in the English-speaking world, and beyond, today. What explains its continuing success? Christoph Schuringa argues that its enduring power can on...
www.versobooks.com
January 19, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Finally more of the hill I'm willing to die on that began as a hunch
Reposted by Vapula
“But the conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not, with some isolated and some ecclesiastical exceptions, express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” - Lionel Trilling
January 15, 2025 at 1:07 AM
“But the conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not, with some isolated and some ecclesiastical exceptions, express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” - Lionel Trilling
Even if one centers class and considers themselves Marxist, dialectical reasoning is non-foundationalist and thus any actual class-reductionism would be pretty blatantly anathema to Marx's work. It certainly is a false dichotomy, identity as such is always inscribed within techno-material structure
January 19, 2025 at 6:28 AM
Even if one centers class and considers themselves Marxist, dialectical reasoning is non-foundationalist and thus any actual class-reductionism would be pretty blatantly anathema to Marx's work. It certainly is a false dichotomy, identity as such is always inscribed within techno-material structure
Reposted by Vapula
Academic Bluesky often alternates between professional and recreational style and content, mere labor or mere play, rather than realizing its possibility for playful labor, thus reinforcing an intolerable world that tolerates only insufferable forms of seriousness, only trivial forms of pleasure.
January 18, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Academic Bluesky often alternates between professional and recreational style and content, mere labor or mere play, rather than realizing its possibility for playful labor, thus reinforcing an intolerable world that tolerates only insufferable forms of seriousness, only trivial forms of pleasure.