Alani Golanski
@alanigolanski.bsky.social
Philosophy @ Graduate Center CUNY, James Kent Scholar @ ColumbiaLaw, Ghanaian drumming @ CalArts -- Partner/Director @ Weitz & Luxenberg
Pinned
Conceptions of Law, Ideology, and the Rule of Law
This article claims that law and the rule of law ought not be seen as coextensive concepts, for if a legal order's deviations from rule of law ideals count equa
papers.ssrn.com
Conceptions of Law, Ideology, and the Rule of Law -- why the rule of law project can be conducive in its moral evaluative commitments to an oppositional ideology in service of democratic agency and an ameliorative social function.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Ukranian Vladyslav Heraskevych w/ helmet, disqualified on the ground that, at the Olympics, "no messaging is allowed." But there's nothing but "messaging" at the Olympics, including in Vladyslav's exclusion.
February 13, 2026 at 2:31 PM
Ukranian Vladyslav Heraskevych w/ helmet, disqualified on the ground that, at the Olympics, "no messaging is allowed." But there's nothing but "messaging" at the Olympics, including in Vladyslav's exclusion.
However simple an enumeration of 'facts' may be, however lacking in commentary, it already implies an 'interpretation', a method - they have been wrenched from their living context and fitted into a theory.
-- György Lukács
-- György Lukács
February 12, 2026 at 5:15 PM
However simple an enumeration of 'facts' may be, however lacking in commentary, it already implies an 'interpretation', a method - they have been wrenched from their living context and fitted into a theory.
-- György Lukács
-- György Lukács
Quine: Conventions are agreements, and we've never agreed to abide by conventions of language.
Lewis: Conventions aren't agreements, they're practical solutions to recurring coordination problems.
Lewis: Conventions aren't agreements, they're practical solutions to recurring coordination problems.
February 11, 2026 at 7:41 PM
Quine: Conventions are agreements, and we've never agreed to abide by conventions of language.
Lewis: Conventions aren't agreements, they're practical solutions to recurring coordination problems.
Lewis: Conventions aren't agreements, they're practical solutions to recurring coordination problems.
Aimed at compressing the census by disregarding non-citizen residents, "Hanaway’s lawsuit is ugly and unfounded. Even in these dark times for the rule of law and basic human decency, this gambit should fail and she should be judged for the attempt."
missouriindependent.com/2026/02/10/m...
missouriindependent.com/2026/02/10/m...
Missouri attorney general wants to rewrite history and redefine who counts in the Census • Missouri Independent
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has filed a lawsuit seeking to require the Census Bureau to “redo” the $14 billion 2020 Census.
missouriindependent.com
February 10, 2026 at 10:04 PM
Aimed at compressing the census by disregarding non-citizen residents, "Hanaway’s lawsuit is ugly and unfounded. Even in these dark times for the rule of law and basic human decency, this gambit should fail and she should be judged for the attempt."
missouriindependent.com/2026/02/10/m...
missouriindependent.com/2026/02/10/m...
Jean-Paul Sartre held a double-edged conception of freedom, on the one hand resting in the fact of people's responsibility for their acts, and on the other hand rooted in the value space in which people can live out what's possible for them.
February 10, 2026 at 3:41 PM
Jean-Paul Sartre held a double-edged conception of freedom, on the one hand resting in the fact of people's responsibility for their acts, and on the other hand rooted in the value space in which people can live out what's possible for them.
Reposted by Alani Golanski
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue
#Pinks #ProudBlue
February 5, 2026 at 11:50 AM
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue
#Pinks #ProudBlue
Newspaper founded by Jean-Paul Sartre (1973): "Bad Bunny, the man who scares Trump."
February 8, 2026 at 11:10 PM
Newspaper founded by Jean-Paul Sartre (1973): "Bad Bunny, the man who scares Trump."
Hannah Arendt brilliantly construed Montesquieu's main concern as "not with laws but with the actions their spirit would inspire," less the nature of government (eg republic vs monarchy) than its action-generating principle.
February 8, 2026 at 11:05 PM
Hannah Arendt brilliantly construed Montesquieu's main concern as "not with laws but with the actions their spirit would inspire," less the nature of government (eg republic vs monarchy) than its action-generating principle.
There is nothing so reassuring as a person's listening to reason. Understanding is rationality which takes account of others and nevertheless retains its independence as an aspect of humanity.
-- Hannah Arendt
-- Hannah Arendt
February 8, 2026 at 5:57 PM
There is nothing so reassuring as a person's listening to reason. Understanding is rationality which takes account of others and nevertheless retains its independence as an aspect of humanity.
-- Hannah Arendt
-- Hannah Arendt
Cordell Hull (1871- 1955), the retrograde Secretary of State under FDR, whose isolationist bleating that admitting refugees would pose a threat to the US, substantially contributed to the country's penurious WW II immigration policies.
February 8, 2026 at 4:23 PM
Cordell Hull (1871- 1955), the retrograde Secretary of State under FDR, whose isolationist bleating that admitting refugees would pose a threat to the US, substantially contributed to the country's penurious WW II immigration policies.
The jurist Eduard Gans, specially known for his historical analyses of succession and property law, was both Hegel’s most prominent student and an important early mentor to Marx at the University of Berlin.
February 7, 2026 at 6:44 PM
The jurist Eduard Gans, specially known for his historical analyses of succession and property law, was both Hegel’s most prominent student and an important early mentor to Marx at the University of Berlin.
Rights sold in 1939 for ten shillings, original recording of the tune later turned on its head and transmogrified into The Lion Sleeps Tonight, now misappropriated by the degenerate US president to dehumanize his perceived political foes.
February 7, 2026 at 3:13 PM
Rights sold in 1939 for ten shillings, original recording of the tune later turned on its head and transmogrified into The Lion Sleeps Tonight, now misappropriated by the degenerate US president to dehumanize his perceived political foes.
The Philosophy of Musical Sounds, Robert Smith (1749); printed by J. Bentham, Printer to the Univerfity.
February 7, 2026 at 3:43 AM
The Philosophy of Musical Sounds, Robert Smith (1749); printed by J. Bentham, Printer to the Univerfity.
The economist and émigré from Nazi Germany Paul Baran insisted, in his essay "The Commitment of the Intellectual" (1969), that the Intellectual's responsibility was "the confrontation of reality with reason."
February 6, 2026 at 4:09 PM
The economist and émigré from Nazi Germany Paul Baran insisted, in his essay "The Commitment of the Intellectual" (1969), that the Intellectual's responsibility was "the confrontation of reality with reason."
Herman Cohen (1842-1918), founder of Marburg Neo-Kantianism, grounded his socialist perspective in a Kantian framework - toward treating people as ends not means, as legislators and legislated.
February 6, 2026 at 12:36 AM
Herman Cohen (1842-1918), founder of Marburg Neo-Kantianism, grounded his socialist perspective in a Kantian framework - toward treating people as ends not means, as legislators and legislated.
A corrupt state of things is often represented as an "abuse"; it is taken for granted that the foundation was good. But a great corruption of a large and comprehensive entity is quite another thing, an innate element that only later reveals itself.
-- G.W.F. Hegel
-- G.W.F. Hegel
February 5, 2026 at 7:41 PM
A corrupt state of things is often represented as an "abuse"; it is taken for granted that the foundation was good. But a great corruption of a large and comprehensive entity is quite another thing, an innate element that only later reveals itself.
-- G.W.F. Hegel
-- G.W.F. Hegel
The law, unlike any other system of norms, regulates its own creation.
-- Hans Kelsen (1941)
-- Hans Kelsen (1941)
February 5, 2026 at 5:06 PM
The law, unlike any other system of norms, regulates its own creation.
-- Hans Kelsen (1941)
-- Hans Kelsen (1941)
The fundamental meaning of a democratic constitution is the assertion that power over individuals, by whatever group or citizen, must have legally established limits, nothing being more inimical to coexistence than unlimited power arbitrarily implemented.
-- Norbert Bobbio (1957)
-- Norbert Bobbio (1957)
February 4, 2026 at 4:37 PM
The fundamental meaning of a democratic constitution is the assertion that power over individuals, by whatever group or citizen, must have legally established limits, nothing being more inimical to coexistence than unlimited power arbitrarily implemented.
-- Norbert Bobbio (1957)
-- Norbert Bobbio (1957)
Horkheimer & Adorno here posited in 1947 that enlightenment had been turned on its head, political control over people instead of rational control over nature, inequality blocking justly organized society, mind control preempting autonomy, and so on.
February 3, 2026 at 3:04 PM
Horkheimer & Adorno here posited in 1947 that enlightenment had been turned on its head, political control over people instead of rational control over nature, inequality blocking justly organized society, mind control preempting autonomy, and so on.
Amartya Sen, Hilary Putnam, & Antonio Gramsci shared a belief in the "triple entanglement" of facts, values, but also conventions, in public ethical reasoning, Gramsci writing that one always belongs to a collective that shares "the same mode of thinking and acting."
February 2, 2026 at 2:44 PM
Amartya Sen, Hilary Putnam, & Antonio Gramsci shared a belief in the "triple entanglement" of facts, values, but also conventions, in public ethical reasoning, Gramsci writing that one always belongs to a collective that shares "the same mode of thinking and acting."
Gretel Adorno (1902-1993)
February 2, 2026 at 12:13 AM
Gretel Adorno (1902-1993)
Missing from Adorno's work is the Hegelian notion of 'self-reference'; missing from the Marxism of both men (Adorno and Benjamin) is any notion of human activity or praxis.
-- Gillian Rose
-- Gillian Rose
January 31, 2026 at 9:46 PM
Missing from Adorno's work is the Hegelian notion of 'self-reference'; missing from the Marxism of both men (Adorno and Benjamin) is any notion of human activity or praxis.
-- Gillian Rose
-- Gillian Rose
Hot off the red carpet
January 31, 2026 at 3:42 PM
Hot off the red carpet
Arturo Toscanini courageously
refused to return to the Salzburg Festival in 1938, in protest of Hitler's annexation of Austria.
refused to return to the Salzburg Festival in 1938, in protest of Hitler's annexation of Austria.
January 30, 2026 at 4:18 PM
Arturo Toscanini courageously
refused to return to the Salzburg Festival in 1938, in protest of Hitler's annexation of Austria.
refused to return to the Salzburg Festival in 1938, in protest of Hitler's annexation of Austria.
Leslie Green has long argued that the connection between law and justice is real, but weak. This fascinating book (2023) deserves reading.
January 30, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Leslie Green has long argued that the connection between law and justice is real, but weak. This fascinating book (2023) deserves reading.