Weekendlæsning nr. 1

• Adam H. Johnson om populisme-begrebet: “…without noting that the left’s version of the elite is largely grounded in reality while the right’s is not, those peddling populist think pieces commit intellectual malpractice.“
• “THIS IS NOT a case where I feign journalistic objectivity or neutrality. I regard Chelsea Manning as one of this generation’s greatest heroes, as well as a valued friend. While her release today is somewhat bittersweet — How can one forget the grave injustice that she spent almost all of her 20s in prison for having done something that merited our collective gratitude, and the abuse she continually endured? — I am thrilled that she will finally live as a free woman, and incredibly excited about what she can achieve, how she can inspire people, now that she is finally released.”
• Mikkel Thorup: “I stedet for den foreløbelige sandhed, der er videnskabens iboende epistemologi og læresætning, får vi den totale, endelige, talbaserede autoritet. Politisering af videnskab betyder, at den videnskabelige tvivl og selvkritik omformes til ubetvivlelighed og nødvendighed.“
• “Resistance is transformative. Anthropologist Lena Meari writes of the practice of steadfastness or sumud as deployed by Palestinian prisoners. Being steadfast gives individuals the strength to endure Israeli interrogation; it connects children in prison to their parents outside; it creates a collectivity of prisoners under interrogation who refuse to give each other up. She writes, ‘Sumud…is an infinite creative process, a string of echoes that reflects and creates victory…. Underneath the skin of the one-in-sumud resides all those-in-sumud.’“
• Nicolai von Eggers: “Macrons Revolution er mildest talt en speciel læseoplevelse. Den er et politisk program uden at være et politisk program, en politisk analyse uden at være en politisk analyse og en selvbiografi uden at være en selvbiografi.”
• “Meanwhile, many of the fragments of empires that failed to form nation states, or unwanted minority groups, have at times been made “stateless” populations. These groups have ranged from Russian expatriates after the Bolshevik Revolution, to European Jews during the Holocaust and Palestinian refugees after the creation of Israel. Lacking a passport in a worldwide system of nation states is the ultimate negation of agency.“
• “En ny historisk antologi, redigeret af blandt andre den danske historiker Poul Villaume, rokker imidlertid ved den tilsyneladende konsensus, der er opstået i dansk politik i de seneste årtier: at ørenlyd i Washington kun sikres gennem en kraftig militær betoning af Danmarks udenrigspolitiske engagement, tæt forbundet til USA’s magtinteresser. Bogen ’The Long Détente. Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s-1980s, konkluderer, at sådan har det langtfra altid været. Heller ikke – som vi måske tror i dag – under Den Kolde Krig.”
• Iraq’s Religious Militias Push Back Against A Communist Revival: “…a lot of people in Iraq are indeed worried that the young of the country are turning away from Islam.“
• Jessa Crispin: “Hvis nu nogle af dem – som f.eks. Taylor Swift eller Hillary Clinton – reelt stod for nogle feministiske synspunkter eller forsøgte at leve deres liv efter et feministisk ideal, så ville det jo være decideret revolutionerende, hvis de brugte ordet. Men med politikere, der kalder sig feminister for at få flere stemmer, er man nødt til at se på den politik, de støtter. Clinton var en krigsmager og imod sociale velfærdsydelser. Hun har ikke gjort det lettere for kvinder“
• “…while historians searched for the great male thinkers who might have influenced Descartes’ ideas, they missed the female philosopher who came before him: Teresa of Ávila.”
• Peter Tudvad: “Med skam at melde er jeg fristet til at gøre salig Lilleørs ord til mine egne, da jeg i Stjernfelts opgør med Luther netop har noteret mig, at vilkårlighed, agitation og propaganda spiller en markant større rolle end akademiske dyder som akribi, analyse og fordomsfrihed.“
• Foucault: Crime, Police, & Power (video)
• “The idea [of “white privilege”] was that white skin privilege was actually harmful to white people, because despite the fact that they were granted some advantages over black people, they ended up even more entrenched in their condition of exploitation precisely by accepting these advantages. As a result, they did not build a movement across racial boundaries to fight their common oppression. The fact that the idea of white privilege is used today to show why we can’t possibly unify—that’s a reversal of the core idea. That’s quite an amazing phenomenon, that it’s turned into essentially its opposite.“
• “As Mauss challenged the assumed logic of the market economy, so Clastres questions the notion that power can only be identified as coercive authority. Both anthropologists challenge the evolutionist logic which assumes that the state and the market economy are the inevitable destiny of all societies.“
• “The left has been traditionally defined, in its most radical form, as a movement of the working class against capitalism. What changed over the last half century?” (Podcast)
• Klasse og politik
• Noam Chomsky: I would vote for Jeremy Corbyn (Video-interview)

Billedkunst i toppen af Ferdinand Ahm Krag.