More specifically concerning: marx
The Historicity of Peasants
14 March 2003, around 9.01.
Have been reading Michael Rostovtzeff’s A Large Estate in Egypt in the Third Century B.C. A Study in Economic History (Madison, WI: 1922), a short book in which the notorious Russian historian gives the Zenon archive his attention. Of course, in 1922 the Zenon archive, with early Ptolemaic documents numbering in the thousands, was bigger […]
the arrow of time
27 April 2013, around 17.53.
An enlightened voyage: ‘The Vessel of the Constitution steered clear of the Rock of Democracy, and the Whirlpool of Arbitrary Power’ From antiquity to fascism, Homer has been criticised for garrulousness – both in the hero and in the narrator. —Theodor Adorno (Dialectic of Englightenment: ‘Excursus 1: Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment’, p. 53) Nestor, […]
all we like sheep
17 January 2024, around 4.17.
Our woollen manufacturers have been more successful than any other class of workmen, in persuading the legislature that the prosperity of the nation depended upon the success and extension of their particular business. They have not only obtained a monopoly against the consumers, by an absolute prohibition of importing woollen cloths from any foreign country; […]
norming
4 February 2024, around 19.07.
Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, one cannot judge or admire this particular society by assuming that the language it speaks to itself is necessarily true. —Guy Debord (The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Ken Knabb, §202) I am in a book group or class (I suppose […]
going for broke
8 February 2024, around 11.57.
A week of personal time tracking; left (4:00 a.m.) to right (3:59 a.m.)(blue is reading, green is sleep) The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the public house, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save and the greater […]
Adversaria (11)
29 February 2024, around 4.00.
‘…poetry, which is like modern dance for uncoordinated people’ —Claire Dederer (Love & Trouble, ch. 13) ‘…The Editor, an avuncular but testy figure who might send a few encouraging words written in a discouraging hand’ —Lavinia Greenlaw (Some Answers Without Questions, p. 99) ‘I read the letters but couldn’t understand them. I could understand the […]
roundabout
4 March 2024, around 9.40.
Far from being able to satisfy the yearning for immortality by trustfully throwing oneself upon the bosom of the Eternal by an immediate moral and religious act, the individual felt constrained to take a long and circuitous route. —Jacob Burckhardt (The Age of Constantine the Great, trans. Moses Hadas, p. 154) My major reading project […]
close encounters
21 March 2024, around 8.16.
A man cannot be judged solely by the company he keeps. This is often true of young people, who are easily influenced. Indeed, even at a later age, the converse is sometimes true: that no man is responsible for his acquaintances. In true love, however, or in true friendship, the encounter is quite different: the […]
Adversaria (12)
31 March 2024, around 8.10.
‘Lack of clarity is selfish and confusing. The writer is wasting your time. Up with this you need not put’ —Deidre Nansen McCloskey (Economical Writing, p. 17) ‘No one is prepared to be Serious, especially about Art. I liked the way these critics wrote and fell under the rhetorical spell of their semi-colons, qualifications and […]