G_Bookner [he/him]

  • 1 Post
  • 21 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: March 26th, 2022

help-circle




  • Yesterday I called my mother and she started talking about the “world situation”. What confuses and worries me is that every time I corrected a point she made, she acted as if this was her position from the beginning. For example: She started by saying that she feared that Putin and the leaders in the west will start throwing nukes because they are mad and are just stupid people. When I tried to explain that the current situation in Ukraine is the result of a very specific strategical thinking and a reaction to economic demands, and that they are not just going to throw nukes out of spite, she said that she completely agrees and that she’s glad that we are both so like-minded. Another example is when she later said that it’s important to look at statistics to keep yourself informed about the world in an objective way. When I told her that this might not be a good idea and explained the flaws of statistics to her, she said that she of course knows that they are not objective and shouldn’t be used in that way as if she knew all along.

    To me it appears that she definitely understands the differences between our positions and then immediately tries to correct them by drastically changing hers (basically gaslighting me into thinking my response was wrong). But why does she do this? It’s so irritating and when I try to point out that she changed her position, she just says that that’s not true or she just quickly changes the subject.









  • I mean, the amazon episode was pretty dumb, but the rest of Chibnall’s episodes were pretty good imo. “Partition of India” and “It takes you away” were pretty memorable episodes among many other good ones and I also really liked “Flux” and the idea of the timeless child finally brought something new to the table. Chibnall managed to overcome Moffat’s unnecessary labyrinths of plots as well as his misogyny while not abandoning big ideas in general.

    I would’ve liked to have him continue running the show, especially after the last special by Davies, which I didn’t find that convincing.




  • This is not accurate. It is possible to say that Adorno and Horkheimer could have done more to get Benjamin into the US (Horkheimer did get Benjamin a visa at some point), but they didn’t leave him to die because he was friends witch Brecht (?). I also don’t really know how easy it was to get someone out of Europe during that time. Also Benjamin stayed far too long in France due to his depression and his suicide in Spain was a result of a very unfortunate miscommunication.


  • Yes. I don’t really know where to start criticizing it and I’m also not really interested in doing so. But for one, having read some works of most of the philosophers the author names, I don’t see the big difference between the historical view he solely assigns to Lukács and that of other philosophers like Adorno or Derrida, who repeatedly argued for recognizing the continuity of fascism in human societies. Also, the connection between the so called post-structuralists tradition and Nietzsche or Heidegger is a critical one. When Derrida draws on Heidegger or Nietzsche, this is to be understood as an engagement with the negative at work in the tradition of Western philosophy. What seems kind of strange here is that the author dismisses any dialectic at work in the philosophy he’s out to criticize, especially when he is drawing so heavily on Lukács and Hegel.





  • I played Baldur’s Gate 1 and started playing 2 a few days ago. It took me some time to get used to how things work in the games (I have no experience with d&d so some things where quite hard to understand in the beginning), but I really love the games. The themes and story are great and I am really amazed at the amount of interactions that are possible and what kind things you are allowed to say. Like, you can criticize Baldurans colonialism in 1 in a random dialogue that is not really important for making progress in the game, for example. Or you can rescue the drow Viconia who is basically only prosecuted for her skin color in both games. Also class difference is a major theme in 2 and I like how it is even present in your own party. I’m also really looking forward to kill some slavers when I’m powerful enough.