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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 6h

And if all desire is mimetic, then how can there be the free will to choose to imitate Christ (who Girard thinks solves the problem of mimesis by offering a model that can be imitated without leading to typical mimetic conflict) out of an array of mimetic options?

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 6h

Mimetic desire surely accounts for vast swathes of human activity, just not all of it. And if there are multiple contradictory options to be imitated, yet we only choose one (or reject them all), that’s a desire which is not truly mimetic…

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 7h

Trying to get my head round Girard. There’s *something* to what he says, but there are clearly non-mimetic as well as mimetic desires. And he leaves no room for innovation, or radical breaks. Surely somebody has to be the first to desire something even if everyone else follows that trend-setter?

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Woodrow Peel 🆗🆒 @woodyluvscoffee.bsky.social · 2d

Told a young coworker not to mistake ChatGPT for experience or you'll end up like Icarus and caught him asking ChatGPT who is Icarus

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evy kwong @evystadium.bsky.social · 10h

hi hello unpaywalled

The WIRED Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance

Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. Here are some steps you can take to ev...

www.wired.com

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 8h

I haven’t either really. Not sure if he’s my bag. 😀

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 3d

subterranean citizen X436-A @guntoucher... • 7d
Magus
CEO of Oreo Cookies: the oreo cookie is as important as oxygen

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Ronan Fitzgerald @rmkf.bsky.social · 2d

😬

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Boston Review @bostonreview.bsky.social · 13h

“With this attempt at a longed-for ‘post-post-postmodern sacralization,’ he has taken apocalypse to its logical conclusion, flooding the narrative with comic megalomania, petty vitriol, horrific crimes and frogs, setting it off with a match and blowing it all sky high.”

Holly Case on Krasznahorkai:

László Krasznahorkai’s Catastrophic Harmonies - Boston Review

The winner of the National Book Award for Translated Literature serves up an apocalyptic vision of Hungarian society.

www.bostonreview.net

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 15h

“I’m a billionaire and a bad person and I’m scared of dying so let me pretend this technology will make me immortal oh I fucked up the economy for everyone else well who cares I’m a billionaire”

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 15h

One of the crazy things about the AI bubble bursting is that consumer sentiment toward AI has always leaned skeptical to outright negative but it’s an industry propped up by pure billionaire greed, sycophancy, and childish fantasy

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 14h

"The Trump administration is building its case for authoritarian action on a fictional idea of America’s cities [as] wastelands of murder and despair, covered over with a patina of liberal decadence."

Good @aselrod.bsky.social on centrality of fiction to MAGA
www.liberalcurrents.com/all-in-our-h...

All In Our Heads: On Losing Our Democracy and Life Beyond Our Imaginations

Our language has to meet the moment, and we have to be relentless about dispelling the fiction MAGA is selling.

www.liberalcurrents.com

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Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 15h

Rutgers University professor who published book on antifa was informed at boarding gate that his trip was * cancelled *
#antifa #HigherEd #fascism #research
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

US anti-fascism expert blocked from flying to Spain at airport

Rutgers University professor who published book on antifa was informed at boarding gate that his trip was cancelled

www.theguardian.com

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 14h

Totally. My take is that his critical methodology is useful and at points brilliant, but he failed to advance a criteria whereby politically valid & invalid forms of power could be distinguished, leaving himself open to reactionary appropriations.

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 14h

She should rock out with a used tampon hanging around her neck while dropping references to George Bataille in interviews. Only way forward.

Mr. Chau @srirachachau.bsky.social · 5d

Taylor Swift could do a reverse Gwen Stefani and drop a ska album. Would be important to the real people: me

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Mr. Chau @srirachachau.bsky.social · 5d

Taylor Swift could do a reverse Gwen Stefani and drop a ska album. Would be important to the real people: me

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 14h

I’m not sure Foucault was left-wing typically. He was basically saying that power coincides with knowledge production into a practice of social control, which could premise a critique of state bureaucracy, therapy, identify politics, etc. He was not a conservative either though.

ellie lockhart (she/they) @eleanor.lockhart.contact · 2d

The other thing about the conversion therapy point is how intensely it confirms folks who argued that Foucault was secretly right wing

Like I’m a Foucault fan but “therapy is just speech and has to be understood as only politics” is a deranged outcome of his theory going mainstream

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H e t e r o t o p ia @artsofexistence.bsky.social · 2d

Michel Foucault with his cat, 'Folie'.
(Private)

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Dwayne Monroe @cloudquistador.bsky.social · 2d

In this sharply observed essay, my compadre and co-editor @harrysimmons3578.bsky.social applies Karl Kraus' century old assault on media and analysis of its impact on our thinking to current conditions. We have not improved. Indeed, we are worse off.

H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost @harrysimmons3578.bsky.social · 2d

Hear ye, hear ye, come on by and read my newest rag as I rant and rave about this world of ours: what I call our ‘World of Posters’

vdgasjournal.com/2025/10/07/t...

This World of Posters

Everyday I wake up (always a mistake) and do my best not to give any consideration to the media. Why should I? They are the knaves, of both higher and lower ambitions, who sell us whatever amount o…

vdgasjournal.com

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 19h

This is an entirely new genre of young Tory and tbh I’m more comfortable with the ones in corduroys and blazers. 😳

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 19h

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 19h

It gives the impression that they’re going to be performing at Butlins.

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Ronan Fitzgerald @rmkf.bsky.social · 19h

I sort of enjoyed this article, apart from the fact the Guardian itself three times a week runs an article that's like "I shouted at a waiter, and realised for years my true self had been suppressed"

Look out for number one! Selfish self-help books are booming – but will they improve your life?

If you yearn for an Ayn Randian existence of absolute self-reliance, there are plenty of bestsellers that can help. They may not make you happier though

www.theguardian.com

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 19h

They’re not that good lol.

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Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 20h

New indie band called ‘The 1974 Energy Crisis’ who specialise in barbed satire of British life and exclusively play children’s toy instruments. Debut single ‘Southwold Pier Suicide’ has received a rave review in The Quietus.

Dr Mark | 北马克 |🍉🇦🇺🇲🇾🇹🇭 @ajaanmark.bsky.social · 1d

Are they hoping to start a Young Tory cosplay trend on TikTok
www.thetimes.com/article/8c9a...

Meet the young Tories dreaming of a bright blue future

The Conservatives know they have a problem with Gen Z voters. At the party conference, The Times met a new breed of activists who are embracing the challenge

www.thetimes.com

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