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    Wright's Writing

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    On stupidity and the excesses of wokeness
    • Apr 8
    • 9 min

    On stupidity and the excesses of wokeness

    One of the first laws of human existence, or at least of existence in class societies (determined by anti-human institutions that mold...
    Resisting fascism (a book review)
    • Oct 10, 2021
    • 9 min

    Resisting fascism (a book review)

    [This review was published at H-Socialisms.] The elevation of Donald Trump onto the national political stage in 2016 provoked a heated...
    On humans' language faculty
    • Jun 15, 2021
    • 11 min

    On humans' language faculty

    You may have heard of the “talking gorilla” Koko. I remember as a child reading about this fascinating creature that had been trained to...
    On how to live
    • Sep 13, 2020
    • 6 min

    On how to live

    When I was younger, I used to wonder: should I care what people think of me? I saw arguments on both sides of the question. And I still...
    Journal-notes on cognitive science
    • Sep 6, 2020
    • 19 min

    Journal-notes on cognitive science

    [From 2015.] Reading a bunch of articles on cognitive development. A fascinating field. Interesting: Human infants who receive little...
    On Wittgenstein and Quine
    • Aug 31, 2020
    • 10 min

    On Wittgenstein and Quine

    Wittgenstein is an odd case. I've always had the impression that his early work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, is genius—and not...
    "Government in the Future"
    • Aug 29, 2020
    • 3 min

    "Government in the Future"

    [From 2008.] Reading Chomsky’s pamphlet Government in the Future, which sets out to answer the question “What is the role of the state in...
    I wish stupidity were less common
    • Aug 21, 2020
    • 9 min

    I wish stupidity were less common

    This is going to be a whiny, self-pitying post. Just to warn you. The question is sometimes asked, "Why are stupid people frequently so...
    Old syllabus and lecture notes
    • Jun 9, 2020
    • 8 min

    Old syllabus and lecture notes

    [Here are some notes from the first syllabus I wrote for the U.S. History After 1865 survey course. Below them are overly ambitious notes...
    Notes on a radical interpretation of the Cold War
    • Jul 30, 2019
    • 18 min

    Notes on a radical interpretation of the Cold War

    [Also here]. I’ve been reading Gabriel and Joyce Kolko’s classic The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945–54...
    A little misanthropy can be a healthy thing
    • Jul 24, 2019
    • 19 min

    A little misanthropy can be a healthy thing

    This is from a letter Sigmund Freud wrote to his pastor friend Oskar Pfister: I do not break my head very much about good and evil, but I...
    What will "the revolution" look like?
    • Jul 11, 2019
    • 10 min

    What will "the revolution" look like?

    Here's a blog post for you masochists who are interested in the debates that go on among Marxist intellectuals over questions around...
    The necessity of revolutionary violence
    • Nov 10, 2016
    • 2 min

    The necessity of revolutionary violence

    [Student notes.] You should read Lance Hill's The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement. Gives a compelling...
    Richard Lewontin, Chomsky, and common sense
    • Jul 20, 2016
    • 3 min

    Richard Lewontin, Chomsky, and common sense

    Richard Lewontin’s article “The Evolution of Cognition: Questions We Will Never Answer” is excellent. It counsels skepticism about...
    Elite pretentiousness
    • Jul 9, 2016
    • 5 min

    Elite pretentiousness

    The following is the beginning of an essay I wanted to write years ago on the concept of pretentiousness, a phenomenon the ubiquity of...
    The silliness of logical positivism
    • Jul 5, 2016
    • 5 min

    The silliness of logical positivism

    [Old jottings from my journal.] Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, from the selections I’ve read so far, is sensible. (That isn’t...
    Fragments on bourgeois ideologists
    • Jan 12, 2016
    • 6 min

    Fragments on bourgeois ideologists

    On neoclassical economics.— Milton Friedman wrote a famous article in 1953 called “The Methodology of Positive Economics,” in which he...
    Thoughts on thinkers
    • Sep 28, 2015
    • 2 min

    Thoughts on thinkers

    [Some notes I took a while ago. They may be kind of obvious, but I think it’s interesting to adopt something like Hegel’s perspective on...
    A 25-year-old's love affair
    • Sep 19, 2015
    • 3 min

    A 25-year-old's love affair

    [From an old journal entry.] Noam Chomsky is my intellectual conscience. I think about him every day, multiple times a day. He helps...
    Radical human nature
    • Sep 27, 2014
    • 3 min

    Radical human nature

    The power of indoctrination is shown by the fact that most people don’t consider themselves radical leftists, socialists, or anarchists....

    Wright's Writing

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