Ideology of Power

Good Criticism – no bullshit euphemisms Here’s a wild thought – if you thought through how to deal with criticisms, you might handle it better. Modern social organisations are so complex and crowded that anyone must give and take criticism – good or ill intentions notwithstanding – on a daily basis. There are different types of criticisms and different kinds of people which give criticism. The latter affects the former, though it is not always determinative. But one has limited capacity to take criticism – there is a cognitive cost to feeling inadequate, and one must be aware of the danger of becoming deaf to all criticism.

This is by no means a comprehensive study; rather, it is an appeal to common sense, the common sense to avoid the rubbish which clutters up so much of the Internet. It is in the Internet where opinions metastasize without end, where false information is passed on with a speed and ferocity overwhelming the nuanced truth. Never has it been more important to exercise one’s own judgment – by “exercise of judgment” I mean the process of balancing considerations and rationalising decisions, with an eye to making considered, sensible conclusions. I emphasise this because it is all too easy to fall in with the opinions of others, determined perhaps by one’s predilections and no more. This way of making decisions is no better than those of the Islamic Fundamentalist zealots, the ones who ultimately end up as suicide bombers, nor is it better than the similarly extremist Crusaders who were fuelled by religious zealotry and expansionist ambitions. Unfortunately, this sort of mass thinking has...

The eminent linguist Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, pours invective at the accepted political narrative promulgated by the then-Obama Administration. Written before the possibility of President Trump’s electoral victory cast its ominous shadow over American politics, Chomsky’s book peels apart the hypocrisy of the American government, evident (provided, that is, one had the requisite information) since the onset of the Cold War. In an incisive and searing analysis of contemporary American policies, Chomsky persuasively substantiates his point: that America, for all its talk of morality and freedom, actively works against the proliferation of the values treasured at home. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent end of the ideological conflict, America has found itself embroiled in one military quagmire after another, destabilizing and radicalizing the very regions and peoples it criticizes for harboring terrorist...