I’ve become very skeptical of the concept of “brainwashing.” Over the past few months this skepticism has boiled over into open and explicit disagreement with even well-meaning pushers within the Marxist-Leninist corner. I often find it difficult to explain concisely why it is…
Popular opinion on whether any given piece of media constitutes “a critique” is often split. Some people, for example, claim that Breaking Bad criticizes sexism, whereas others think it’s a sexist show. In this essay I want to shed some light on the different theories of…
I’ve been writing a four-part article for Field Newspaper Syndicate at the beginning of each year for several years now and in 1980, mindful of the approach of the year 1984, FNS asked me to write a thorough critique of George Orwell’s novel 1984. I was…
There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the…
Let us broach a polemical subject. The British author George Orwell is very well known for works such as Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and his book about the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia. Throughout 2022 I intend to discuss each of these…
You can identify a Very Important Person because they get the proper VIP treatment: they come surrounded by an entourage of PR gurus, secretaries, agents, media handlers and bodyguards. Access to the VIP is limited and controlled, their public appearances are stage managed, their…
Geek culture dominates popular media. Comic-book films like Iron Man, The Dark Knight (both 2008) and The Avengers (2012) are among Hollywood’s highest-grossing blockbusters, while geek/slacker comedies like Superbad and Knocked Up…
On YouTube there are all these funny video compilations. Some are very specific and show nothing but people hurting themselves on slides or animals being clever. Others mix together everything anyone might consider funny: pranks, children being silly, failed acrobatics, etc. Most…
My noble friend, L Ram Saran Das, has asked me to write an introduction to his poetical work, The Dreamland. I am neither a poet nor a litterateur, neither am I a journalist nor a critic. Hence, by no stretch of imagination can I find the justification of the demand. But…
On July 26, 2020 I sat down for two hours and laid out on Twitter why I was skeptical of accusations that China was committing a genocide against the Uyghur people in its western province of Xinjiang. I spoke out, despite lacking professional credentials, because I was frustrated…
Iain M. Banks was a Scottish fiction writer. His most famous work, the Culture series, centers on a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens and advanced artificial intelligences living in constructed habitats spread across the Milky Way. In this essay he…
At the beginning of every essay, a writer has to decide how familiar their intended audience is with the terms they’ll be using. The focus of this essay, H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, occupies a strange position in that it’s both niche and mainstream (e.g. spellcheck…
Comrades! You have been invited to this forum today to exchange ideas and examine the relationship between work in the literary and artistic fields and revolutionary work in general. Our aim is to ensure that revolutionary literature and art follow the correct path of development…
There’s a common trope in media where it’s revealed, most often near the end of the story (but sometimes right off the bat), that trying too hard to do good makes you evil. Game of Thrones, HBO’s Watchmen, The Hunger Games, and many other shows, movies…
The only people who misunderstand George Orwell’s 1984 are those that go around trying to imagine it has a leftist message. It is mistaken to imagine that children in the English-speaking world get his work drilled into them like a mantra because, somehow…