Simon Glendinning
@simonglend.bsky.social
Head of the European Institute and Professor of European Philosophy at LSE.
Simon Glendinning is an English philosopher. Glendinning is Professor of European Philosophy and Head of department in the European Institute at the London School of Economics.
Source: Wikipedia
Philosophy
46%
Political science
28%
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We are seeking an Assistant Professor in International Migration specialised in forced #migration and #policy responses to the #international #displacement of people and/or #immigration, #race and #citizenship (from a #comparative perspective).
🌍️ 👉️ jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
Not sure - I think Lyotard in the 1970s saw this already, as (from the right?) did Heidegger in the 1950s -and both before “neoliberalism” came on the scene and appeared to play an explanatory role, a role it only seemed to have, I think, out of dubious nostalgia for a classic philosophy of history.
I’m puzzled by the fact that an art exhibition today is basically indistinguishable from works in a museum. Is it: works of the clearly past and works of the nearly past?
Reposted by Simon Glendinning
Excellent article from Janan Ganesh. The logic - that the European right and far right will embrace a federal European state - is coherent and hard to dispute.
Essentially, nationalists are starting to realise that European states are simply too small to protect, never mind project, identity
A 🧵
Essentially, nationalists are starting to realise that European states are simply too small to protect, never mind project, identity
A 🧵
The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age
The long read: Whether it’s the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we’ve enter...
www.theguardian.com
I really like thinking about Tooze’s demand that we acknowledge the historically unprecedented character of whatever is happening. I also like thinking about his idea that you don’t know what shit you’re in when you are in it. I don’t think I agree though. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Emergency meeting of EU Member States representatives 5pm today, to discuss relations with the US
And the UK not at the table because of an act of collective insanity.
Emergency meeting of EU Member States representatives 5pm today, to discuss relations with the US
The US became a global power in a time when the economic-political space became planetary. However, a new global order could be constructed in that space by the global powers: one that re-configures each global power as a regional power - if they can mostly agree who gets what.
Reposted by Simon Glendinning
Reposted by Simon Glendinning
Joint Statement of major EU/NATO countries on Greenland, together with Denmark:
Thinking a bit more on this, there is a symbolism in the fact that this warning to the US is issued at the margins of a meeting of the 'coalition of the willing' to defend against Russia.
Europe in 2026, under siege from two sides.
Europe in 2026, under siege from two sides.
Thank you for this essay! Identifying Marxism as *the* inseparable adversary of Nazism is, I think, a pre-requisite of understanding Nazism. OTOH, there is a long tradition of non-Marxist socialism (“beyond all class distinctions”) which resists identifying socialism only with its left variations.
There is a passage on Europe in JS Mill’s On Liberty which could have set the tone for a distinctive and constructive British vision of Europe - but as far as I can see it was lost to the world until I attempted to resurrect it in 2021 …when it was already too late.
Not especially true - every MS has its Europe - but especially truly awful. :(
“Towards integration” or “towards closer union” is an undeniably teleological conception. And there is nothing wrong with that at all. The only question is about the ideal end (the telos). What is “complete” integration? You may say: a federal state. I say: something *essentially* short of that.
Yes! Hilarious.
Not sure about the law example here. I think it would take too long trying to refine it to fit. Nevertheless, on the face of it any piece of EU legislation that harmonises across MSs either does or does not conflict with the existing law in any given MS. The rest follows (I think).
No condescension intended. Teleological development does seem implied in your description of the emerging federal formation - and that would be a questionable way of looking at developments underway. But my central point is that *any* development would be constrained by the limits I identified.
Some national constitutional courts have challenged its absolute reach, asserting limits based on national constitutional identity or fundamental rights. But of course you are right about the steps in the process of law change. I’m not sure it makes a difference to the thought experiment though.
A thought experiment: suppose a law that is common to all MSs - no conflict - and the ECJ asserted a demand for a change in that law. That could be a moment of consensual legal progress in some domain. But what if the MSs all opposed the proposal? Would they all have to suck it up? Idk, I hope not.
Quite rightly the ECJ has primacy over conflicting national laws. But even there states reserve a right to oversight. And the idea that a federal state is “emerging” is far too simplistically teleological. I have mentioned structural limits to the development of that which that idea simply ignores.
The EUs current state-like powers (which, to repeat, I like) are not the powers of a state though - they are delegated powers by states. Just as the open borders of Schengen are open only because they are, by states, closable. But yes: not simply intergovernmental, not at all.
Fair summary. And: yes it is not desirable. A European Union short of a federal state is, however, very desirable. And in answer to your other question: it enhances the sovereignty that a MS keeps. And I focus on MS because they are the unit of membership: it is their union - a union of states.
I do not believe there is a “way” to that goal. It is barely a possible goal. The “example” I gave of a possible way was a best-case scenario- and it too would fail except in two limit exceptions: in a hegemonic MS (identity of MS and Fed interest) or in a MS “on its knees” (no existing interest).
One possibility: you could have, in a member state, a proEUrofederal party of state-abolition. The party policy would be one thing: if it came to power it would give up that governing power and hand it to an EU authority, and become in that moment a regional “implementing authority” of a EUroFed.
But the national interest is distinctive since it is the domain of a state. As Kant puts it, the formation of a federal state cannot be “the will of the nations” - not because right now they are against it but because it is not the sort of thing a nation can will.
Anything (like now) that can be coherently affirmed as in the national interest for each in the all. It is never coherent to suppose it is in the national interest to have no national interest. (Read Kant’s “Perpetual Peace” on this.)
Simon Glendinning
@simonglend.bsky.social
· Dec 31
So you can be firmly opposed to a federal state model and also in favour of voluntarily pooling sovereignty where it is in the interest of each individual in the all.
Simon Glendinning
@simonglend.bsky.social
· Dec 31
“Many Europeans may not like the idea of federalism. There are plenty of people who think that sovereignty only comes in the form of the European NSs that were created in Europe in the 19th century.” This confuses a concern with full federal state structures with attachment to national only ones.
Simon Glendinning
@simonglend.bsky.social
· Dec 31
There is (was) one post-war feature of the UK economy worth keeping in view: the fact that its manufacturing industries were (largely) not decimated by war. So it was not an imperative to build and build new. The economy ran on old - against economies that had shiny new and efficient fixed capital.
Simon Glendinning
@simonglend.bsky.social
· Dec 30
Yarvin: “Conservatives fail because they can never see that [USA] is actually not their country. Liberals win because they can never see that [USA] actually is their country.” He thinks there is a liberal hegemony. So GOP winning an election is not winning at all: the “underdog” DP has already won.