What were the social conditions that led many English intellectuals in the 1930s to engage in fundamental critique of the society in which they lived? Why was social criticism so profound and sustained in Britain from the time of Carlyle and Engels to the surge of English socialism in the 1930s? The answer, of course, …
A 1934 debate about communism among American philosophers
The appeal of Marxist socialism -- communism -- as an alternative to the consumerism, inequality, and exploitation of European and American capitalism was a powerful draw for many intellectuals in the 1930s, especially in the context of the great Depression and widespread crisis and deprivation of the 1930s. This interest extended to many prominent American …
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Can Nietzsche support a decent political philosophy?
Nietzsche's anti-moralism is a key theme in his philosophy and civilizational criticism. He regarded traditional European morality as "herd morality", the deplorable consequence of Christian values of subordination and ressentiment. It is hard enough to find in Beyond Good and Evil or Genealogy of Morals a basis for criticizing even the most grotesque examples of interpersonal brutality and violence, and …
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Classification of political systems and theories
Graph of political systems (click image for full resolution) It is possible to analyze much of the history of modern political philosophy -- political theory since Hobbes and Locke -- in terms of answers to a few primary questions. (This post expands upon a discussion of the "topology" of the space of political theories; link.) The …
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Russia’s aggression against Ukraine as a war crime
When Nazi Germany attacked Poland in 1939 it committed a war crime, codified by the standards established in preparation for the Nuremberg Trials in 1945. Here is a very useful summary of the Nuremberg process ("The Influence of the Nuremberg Trial on International Criminal Law", edited by Tove Rosen) at the Robert H. Jackson Center …
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Vasily Grossman on good and evil
Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate was long delayed in its publication because of Soviet censorship but has come to be recognized as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Grossman was a complex and appealing intellectual. Born in 1905, he was raised in a secular Jewish family in Berdichev, Ukraine. He was educated as …
How to think about deliberate social change
What is involved in trying to create a better world? That is: what is involved in being an activist, a reformer, a radical, a revolutionary, or – for that matter – a reactionary? And how do the various forms of knowledge provided by areas of research in the social sciences play into this question? Is …
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Inclusivity as a democratic goal
Many organizations express the goal of embracing diversity and inclusiveness. This is an admirable goal, but it is often only weakly pursued in practical terms. Efforts towards this end will be stronger in enhancing diversity and inclusiveness if we think carefully about what we have in mind when we think of that better future we …
Herder’s philosophy of history and humanity
An earlier post attempted to express the idea that "humanity" and human culture are self-creators: there is no fixed and prior system of meanings, values, allegiances, and ways of acting that constitutes humanity. Instead, human beings have, through the history of millennia of culture formation, created frameworks of value, meaning, and social relationships that have structured human …
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A Socratic morality of war?
An earlier post raised the question of whether Socrates had participated, directly or indirectly, in atrocities in war during his celebrated service as hoplite in numerous campaigns in the Peloponnesian War. And, further, it seems that Socrates never explicitly criticized the practice of massacring and enslaving the defeated foe (as was practiced by Cleon). Several …
Understanding Society 