Is there something extreme in Norwegian society? asks Remi Nilsen, editor of the Norwegian edition of Le Monde diplomatique after the tragedy in Oslo. Anders Behring Breivik’s writings are not the wild fabulations of a madman. We have heard it all before.
Articles
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Whether it is prehistoric paintings on the walls of caves or the graffiti and advertising we see all over the walls of our modern cities, people need to mark out their space, distinguish it from the untamed wilderness. Peter Wendl asks why we still need to produce signs and icons in public spaces.
Markets and society
When high finance cripples the economy and corrodes democracy
The current financial crisis is not confined to economies, writes Daniel Daianu, former Romanian finance minister and MEP from 2007 to 2009. The erosion of the middle class, the spread of extremism and the threat to democracy are some of the more obvious social effects demanding attention.
Cultural and political paranoia
Editor's introduction
Paranoia functions as an element of everyday American life, writes Boris Vezjak, it is simply a part of cultural algorithm, and it is no coincidence that the examples most commonly cited in connection with it are predominantly American in origin.
Genuine knowledge or intellectual bullshit? Reformed bullshitter George Blecher recalls the moment he learned the difference…
Modernist humanism, in which individual rights and freedoms are won at the expense of the natural world, is entering into ever greater tension with the new emphasis on interconnectedness. Environmental historian Sverker Sörlin on the ongoing scientific renegotiation of concepts of humanity and nature.
The sustainability of democracy
On limits to growth, the post-democratic turn and reactionary democrats
Emancipation, the central demand of democracy, has come to mean liberation from restrictive social and ecological imperatives. Before proposing radical participatory solutions we need to ask how democracy itself serves the politics of unsustainability, argues Ingolfur Blühdorn.
The death throes of Franco
Spain's new reckoning with the dictatorship and Civil War
Spain’s Amnesty Act of 1977 ensured that, during the first two decades of democracy, the memory of the Civil War and the human rights violations of the Franco dictatorship remained taboo. Initiatives by the Zapatero government to redress historic injustices signal a new era, yet there is a way to go before Spanish society is unanimous about its past, writes historian Julián Casanova.
Presente!
Western martyrdom and the politics of memory and death
What is the connection between the mediaeval hunt for relics and the idolization of Benno Ohnesorg? Or between Nietzsche and Oliver Cromwell? Outlining aspects of the history of western martyrdom and its ideologies, Michael Azar shows how to this day the dead are instrumentalized for the purposes of the living.
Genocides?
An interview with historian Ugur Ümit Üngör
The comparison of genocides is neither a crude equation nor an equivalence of evil, argues historian Ugur Ümit Üngör. Rather, comparative study enhances understanding of individual cases and counters political manipulation of genocide under hierarchies of uniqueness.
Cooperation between the communications industry and governments creates unprecedented opportunities for surveillance. Lets not repeat the mistakes of the past and allow companies to assume that users are uninterested in what happens to their data, urge Gus Hosein and Eric King of Privacy International.
In search of Europe
An interview with Jacques Delors
‘We don’t just need firefighters; we need architects too.’ Interviewed in 2010 by Mittelweg 36, Jacques Delors (1925–2023), three times President of the European Commission, spoke of ‘this Europe of values’, its triumphs and failures, and his hope that a federal Europe of nation states would eventually become a reality.
Relax!
Producing culture in a weak intellectual property environment
Cultural producers should be relaxed about digital technology’s erosion of copyright, writes Felix Stalder. A weak copyright regime offers a chance to re-embed cultural production in concrete, personal relationships out of which new economic models can and do emerge.
The good news for big print media is that demand for quality journalism has never been so high. Yet they need to move with the new technology to continue doing what they do best, writes Knut Olav Åmås, culture editor of the Norwegian daily ‘Aftenposten’.
Despite renewed crackdowns on the independent media in Belarus, there are signs that the tide is turning in the battle for free speech in the country. However, victory for the democratic forces will require politicizing Belarus’ young Internet audience, writes Iryna Vidanava.
Neurological and Darwinistic strands in the philosophy of consciousness see human beings as no more than our evolved brains. Avoiding naturalistic explanations of human beings’ fundamental difference from other animals requires openness to more expansive approaches, argues Raymond Tallis.