Continuing the practice, this note represents, revises, and reflects on that which reappears every year, events and memories that should be recalled and reconsidered. I had planned another piece on contemporary Japan, but that can wait.

The last note shared a manuscript I made available through SocArXiv.org, an open archive for the social sciences: Christopher Hobson, ‘Memes and monsters of the interregnum: Gramsci between the times’, Manuscript, 2025.

I’m planning another note in the impromptu series on Japan, this one is more academic, presenting a paper I’ve written on Gramsci’s over-used line about ‘interregnum’. From kinetic conflicts, geopolitical rivalry, economic imbalances, societal polarisation, energy transitions, environmental destruction, technological transformations and much more, evidence of an order breaking is easy to find.

Following on from the last note, staying in and with Japan, as the recent elections can be a ‘teachable moment’, as we like to say in the classroom. What it speaks to is deepening structural stresses that are exceeding existing modes of governance.

After the Lower House elections in Japan last October, I wrote a note that emphasised the mounting and cumulative stresses on the country.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet : - Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel : - Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller : - Osip Mandelstam, ‘The 19th century’: - Georg Lukacs, Preface to The Theory of Novel : - Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols : - Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities : The Ox and His Herdsman , 十牛図〈八〉人牛倶忘 :

Attending to the world feels like a constantly more challenging task. What to listen to? What to read? What to watch? Overwhelmed, dazed, collectively and individually we stumble from news story to news story. Stocks go up, bombs go down. Reality feels more abstracted and simulated, except for those constant reminders of the really real.

Pete Chambers has coined ‘3SD’ to describe conditions in 2025: Surreal, Stubborn, Stupid + Dangerous, Destructive, Dumb. He eloquently describes these conditions at length here. The quotes below are taken from a pair of recently published notes on involution and simulation.

Last note before a pause. Images from my Yashica T4, quotes from Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows .

One of the core aims of this project is to engage in the practice of open thinking. One of the constant challenges is doing so in conditions that actively impede thought and reflection. Swept up in reactivity and immediacy, weighed down by banality and stupidity. Much of this note is based on some ideas about AI from about two years ago that I have yet to find the space to finish working through.

Watching - and experiencing - big tech march forward with close to zero concern for the societal costs, I keep recalling this talk that Neil Postman gave to Apple employees in 1993. He considers the development of computers in the context of his arguments, emphasising the costs and unexpected consequences that always come with technological developments.