The smaller print on the sign, below the price of potatoes, says that anyone unable to pay can take what they need for free. Iran is a deeply polarized society, politically. It is also this.
Tabriz, Chahar Rah-e Taleghani, Sixth Day of the War
Even in the last ten years, many "Christian nationalists" and "neoliberals" did not know that's who they were until after they heard us yelling at them that they were these awful things! Microblogging seems like the perfect venue for these kinds of anti-dialogicity to play out.
Because Moyaert’s book, unlike so many other textbooks, is theoretically rich and contributes to an ongoing conversation in addition to serving as an introduction to its topic, it necessarily also raises new questions. One of these is the question of how the “othered” communities are affected, not just materially but intellectually, by their religionization. It seems to me that just as racialized peoples often respond to racialization by actively avowing and assuming their racialized identities, advancing them as counter or even superior to the white “norm”, so too do religionized peoples respond both by disavowing and avowing their narrowly-construed, religionized identities. So, for example, Jews may take pride in their “legalism”, or Muslims in their “desert warrior spirit”. This may also provide a different lens for understanding “reactionary” tendencies in the majority population, for example, when a Christian conservative rejects the predominant liberalism by consciously and counter-culturally embracing a “Crusader” past. If, however, members of these communities want to reject such avowals without thereby affirming the initial religionization, they are confronted by a gnarly and difficult intellectual and political problem, as they risk being accused of assimilation on one side and reaction on the other.
Love thinking with @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social 's review of a new textbook on "religionization." Here, I'm struck by the tendency to "lean into" features of an identity category your Others use to diminish you.
www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...
It's interesting to think through how E Asians have historically thought about the gemeinschaft/gesellschaft distinction, esp. before they learned Weber, modern German, etc. What might a 13th c. analogue be?
I don’t know the “neofeudalism” literature - my sense is that is attempting to describe contemporary political developments in technofascism as devolutionary - but mostly going on vibes? Are there medievalists who employ “feudalism” as limited but appropriate analogy to describe 20th-21st c stuff?
If you eliminate “feudalism” as a concept, how do you begin to think about the absence of the state/empire, the devolution of practical authority to “lower” levels, personal bonds, disconnection? What’ve been the major theoretical alternatives?
Listening to Elliott Gould narrate Raymond Chandler’s _The Big Sleep_ (1939). Pop culture and Los Angeles make more sense to me now.
1. Chinese Religions
2. Buddhist Studies
3. Classical Theory of Religion (Durkheim, Weber, Marx)
4. Historiography, Literary Theory, Narrativity
Aerial photos of the destruction of the Senate house release by BBC Persian
Modern photo of the Senate Palace showing its iconic, Persepolis influenced columns. A man on a bike in the front.
The former Palace of the Senate, an architectural icon of Tehran, has been almost completely razed. Built in the 1950’s by Heidar Ghiyayee, it was the seat of the Upper Chamber in the Pahlavi period, for a short while the seat of the IRI Majlis, and then that of the Khobregan Council. Horrible!
Tweet from senator Andy Kim wishing constituents a happy Purim. The graphic is New Jersey with lots of Mardi Gras iconography for some reason
oh that’s not—
May your Chiangs be unleashed, your Gabbards be unscabbarded, and your Johns be unfettered, man
Meanwhile some KMT dynastic patriarch is joking about “unleashing goldwater” while playing tennis with his kids
I will add one last thought. Many of the responses from Democratic lawmakers and liberal commentators (even the good ones) contain some ambivalence - some hope that perhaps the fall of the Iranian regime, even at the hands of Donald Trump, will be for the best. I understand why. I am the son of an Iranian immigrant. Ultimately I want freedom, democracy, and dignity for the Iranian people. The problem is that I've seen the American government promise all of those things a hundred times, and I've never seen them deliver it once.
one more excerpt
Even progressive liberals deserve to honor the mystical conservative warrior inside! 🫡
Mystical conservative dharma warriors
May your Chiangs be unleashed, your Gabbards be unscabbarded, and your Johns be unfettered, man
Searching for “title vi and foreign policy” I pulled up the heritage foundation’s blueprint for dismantling title vi… which Trump II did last year 😵💫 www.heritage.org/education/re...
From the late nineties, mostly on E Asian Area Studies read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/2...
Edy no. Bad edy.
Starting in 2026, the National Endowment for the Humanities will only fund research on "Western civilization"
Journalist: What do you think of Western civilization?
Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.
What is the current ratio of self-help books to “organize your workplace” books?
Claude write me some bait
It’s plagiarism but it’s also parasitism — it has to end up killing the host. It reminds me of c suite execs who “use” it to reduce employees below them on the corporate ladder and entry-level positions… well… who’s going to learn how to be the next c suite exec if you cut down the ladder?
What’s best on what if any one thing motivates antitrans reporting and activism? Where were they radicalized? And why now, more than ever?
If the Buddha says “garsh” kill him
The “prophetic tradition” turns out to be observing stuff and making inferences
Vote Bloom no matter whom. _Leopold_ Bloom. Potato. — James Joyce’s Ulysses
For every non-Epstein-friend authored opinion, you must read one Epstein-friend-authored opinion. Every GOOD argument needs to be balanced by a TERRIBLE argument. I am very smart
As for “civic” or “civil religion” I’m sure there’s been tons since bellah and wonder what might be cooking for the 250th July 4 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America...
