The aim of this series is thinking through and thinking with China. One of the references for ‘to orient’ is Edward Said, and while these notes likely fail to meet his exacting standards, hopefully the intent and core ideas might. The aim - the need - is to recognise and reckon with China, in all its complexity and detail.
Faced with contagion, confrontation, conflict, how to avoid disorientation? And if that can be managed, how can we actively and positively orientate ourselves? A starting assumption here is that there are better and worse ways to orientate, and we should aim for better ones.
The political and financial might of the United States, combined with the centrality of its tech platforms and English as the lingua franca, ensures voices from that one country tend to occupy an outsized role in discourse and thinking. Certainly, what happens there is deeply consequential for the world, and so it is important, it does matter.
A new missive has appeared from the ever-prolific , this time about Antonio Gramsci’s much quoted ‘interregnum’:ChartbookChartbook 298 Built not Born - against "interregnum"-talk (Hegemony Notes #2) "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born;
Zooming in and zooming out, moving from the micro to the meso and the macro. From the most basic of daily interactions, through to the relationships and institutions in which we work and participate, all the way up to the highest levels of international politics and global power, remarkably consistent patterns and dynamics are found. Similar shapes, similar uneven edges and jagged lines. Social entropy is fractal.
Karl Barth, ‘The problem of ethics today’: - Hannah Arendt, ‘Introduction into Politics’: - Bertolt Brecht, ‘And in your country?’: - Theodor Adorno, Problems of Moral Philosophy : - Eugenio Montale, ‘Cuttlefish bones’: - Paul Valéry, History and Politics:
In his seminal analysis, Max Scheler defined ressentiment in the following terms: It is tricky concept that speaks to a tricky reality. Recently, it has been explored by Pankaj Mishra in his book, Age of Anger . In an accompanying article he observes: One of Mishra’s points is that the surfacing and spread of this anger is neither incidental nor accidental, it is deeply connected to prevailing political and economic structures.
We live in a world of ‘up and to the right’. Much of the stresses and strains we are facing can be connected to that gap between expectation of continued possibility and a biophysical world of life that is generally not well matched to such rapid and sustained growth. And yet, this is what is wanted.
In a nuanced and thoughtful piece, Philip Zelikow judges: Indeed. And yet, the tendency is for analysts to mix empty platitudes with unearned certainties. Conflict as content, triviality prevails. Faced with a troubling array of possible futures, grimly marching towards November, there is a need to escape social media circularity, and instead move outwards in thought. With that in mind, some points and provocations.
To these questions posed by Guillaume Pitron could be added: how much energy was required to create this note and podcast? What inputs are required for you to be able to read and listen to it? These are things we simply do not think about: the whole digital experience feels ‘light’, it is in ‘the cloud’. But that cloud is very real and very heavy. Look at these charts and then wonder: what resources are needed for this growth to be possible?
Bruno Latour, ‘I am interested in Europe as an ecological problem’ (2019): - Tony Judt, ‘The Way Things Are and How They Might Be’, London Review of Books (2010) : - Sam Knight, ‘What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain?’ The New Yorker (2024): - Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (2024): - Adam Curtis, Interview with Jacobin (2023):