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The colorful Indian microcosm

ESSAY Diana Pascu -
REISEESSAY: In search of a self away from the corona pandemic. In India, the western structure is turned upside down. Instead of crying for food and clean water, the homeless masses sing mantras and throw flowers to their idols to forget the hungry…
INTERVIEW
MODERN TIMES CONVERSATIONS:

The military-industrial complex

From someone who should know the intricacies of foreign policy and geopolitics: Thorbjørn Jagland on military rearmament and enemy images – when it comes to the USA, Russia, China, Turkey and Libya.
Truls Lie -
COMMENT
MEMORIES:

About mourning or insulting the dead

When we draw unfinished memorial pictures that suit us, we offend the dead.
John Y. Jones -
documentary
ANTISEMITTISM:

The legacy of Ruth Maier


Elsa Kvamme: No more everyday
Elsa Kvamme's new documentary No more everyday life tells the story of Jewish Ruth Maier, who in no way has lost its relevance and importance.
Alexander Huser -

BOOK REVIEWS (click here for more)

COPENHAGEN: Have you been so busy turning the city of the unemployed into a well-paid taxpayer town that you overlooked that those with ordinary jobs could not afford to live in the new neighborhoods?

Ørestaden, Nordhavn, Amager Strandpark, Sluseholm, Lynetteholm

PHOTO: Is it possible that anti-capitalist expressions are reduced to insignificant gestures and instead become symbols of the immediate consumption of social media?

The capitalist world of images

CHINA: On the edge of the republic, the cultural revolution and market capitalism: Beijing from Below provides a unique insight into China of today – through life stories belonging to the urban people who have not found a place in either official history or official economic progress.

The marketization of China's economy

CITY PLANNING: The eco-city is part of the innovation in China. From block, super block to mega block and eco block? Here we get an analysis of the years after Deng Xiaoping's "reform and openness policy".

China's urban development

FASCISM: The complex consequences of fascism spread through false news, attacks on privacy, mass surveillance and disintegrating democracies. People manipulate ideas and influence the attention economy – helped by dopamine. ws book is scary, yet necessary about the world we live in.

If Skinner had been alive today, he would have worked for Facebook

AFRICA: What is civilization, what is belonging, how much can a human being endure, and who are the wild, the heartless?

The hangover of colonialism

DIAGNOSIS: Does hope lead to disappointment and desperation to terror? With Alain Bertho, we can talk about a presentism, ie a lasting present, without past or future.

A shaky diagnosis of a disillusioned youth

CAPTURE: Who has the right to move "freely" on the digital highways, and who is waved to the side by the police or the state intelligence service because their data profile appears on the radar?

In the hands of the state?

THE RESCUE INDUSTRY: It is not only the others who are being exploited. Politicians, trade unionists and philanthropists are falling over each other in the fight against modern slavery.

Skin braiding of the tale of modern slavery

BUENOS AIRES: The city has an intensity on every street corner that seduces even the most hurried visitor. Does the book disappoint for its stereotypical and mediocre photographs?

Why this photo book?

VIOLENCE: "Security" is a highly profitable industry in which large French private arms manufacturers are increasingly developing and selling security technologies – stun guns, tear gas, water cannons, lightning grenades and drones. Two new books look at French police violence and brutality.

The increasingly extensive brutality of the police

MODERNITY: The selfish pursuit of new extremes and the experience of the present has become a worrying symptom of a modern world in serious strays. An anxiety for the break and the space?

The adrenaline rush and the electrified human being

REFUGEES: These are heartbreaking and shocking stories – despite the fact that they appear toned down and without excessive dramatization.

Young adults from the most conflict-ridden areas in the world

ECOLOGY: Naturtro opens with a journey through a Norway that has been taken over by wind farms and salmon farms. Has the weathering of nature become a normalized violence – in line with the logic of colonialism?

When nature abuse becomes normal

PHOTO ART: Can art function as a correction to discrimination, self-denial and self-contempt? And can an "instruction manual" be a beautiful event in Norwegian non-fiction?

Corner posts, clues or bearing points

PHILOSOPHY: Having your head full of thoughts is not the same as thinking. To think means to concentrate the power of thought in special directions – as the long-term consequences of one's own actions…

To care about future generations

GROWTH: Through "creative destruction" and technological disruption, capitalism created the conditions for a new cycle of economic growth. But now the trend seems to continue towards zero. Is it a vicious circle of global competition, falling prices, overcapacity, technological inertia (rather than innovation) and falling incentives to invest – which is the cause of capitalism's protracted crisis?

Now the robots may no longer be called Frankenstein or R2D2, but Siri, Alexa, AlphaGo or Yaskawa Motoman

POWER: The investigative rather than critical practice, characterizes a new generation of journalists, artists and NGOs. They process large datasets in order to point out abuses. Like the poison gas attack in Syria, or American secret prisons.

Aesthetic studies of state violence

ATOMIC POWER: Is learning completely new ways to love people, countries and culture – only possible if we break down the state apparatus, as Sabu Kohso claims?

Autonomy and mutual help

ARCHITECTURE: How can we design big cities where we can be more alone together?

To make the order in order

AVERAGE: Do the media maintain social and societal conditions, or are they a tool for change?

Anyone can make news

WORK: "Working under capitalism is devastating to people, you die a little inside every time you go to work for someone else."

A truly solidary and subversive feminism – who do you work for?

EAST ASIA: Mark W. Driscoll tells, among other things, concrete stories about drunken, arrogant, hyper-violent and rape-cultivating diplomats, missionaries and businessmen.

How China and Japan were integrated into today's completely unsustainable global capitalism

DIPLOMA: The Soviet Union and the Eastern European satellite states gained influence in the world through a so-called gift diplomacy that spawned strings of architectural beauties. By Hans Henrik Fafner

The Soviet architecture

COMMENTS

COMMENT
CHRONICLE:

Vaccination queue and side effects

What do we actually know about something as vital as the serious side effects of Covid vaccines?
Torleif Dønnestad -
MANAGER
MANAGER:

Palestine, Portugal, pluralism

When is more independent identity important, and not?
Truls Lie -
MANAGER
CLIMATE:

The three ecologies

What does the city of Siracusa have in common with the UN and a French philosopher?
Truls Lie -

ESSAYS

DEATH:

Losing a life witness

Can one grieve over a person who turned 97 years old? Grief can be deeply selfish and liberating collective. But grief can also create communities in the love of the deceased.
Steffen Moestrup -
IDEA HISTORY:

To challenge a Eurocentric perspective


Olivette Otele Hachette, Verena Krebs: African Europeans. An Untold History, Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe
African and African-European personalities were central in building what we today call Europe – from the dawn of time to the present day. Africans founded cities in Spain and Italy before ruling the Roman Empire. And Ethiopia also helped Europe advance in the 1400th century.
Dag Herbjørnsrud -

MODERN TIMES: The ecocentric human being

Orientering (50 years ago)

ORIENTERING:

The ideological turmoil of Marxism-Leninism

The basis of Marxism-Leninism, Norwegian edition by Ny Dag 1962.
NATO:

At NATO's disposal

 During the NATO exercise Good Heart, the "enemy" were striking workers and named Norwegian organizations.

DOCUMENTARY PHOTO

PHOTO:

ITALY: a strange and surreal case of subtle surrender

Is Italy Europe's most extraordinary and ordinary country? Maria Vittora Trovato takes pictures of its shadow pages.
PHOTO:

"See me as I am"

How are blacks presented? A portrait photograph is far from neutral, neither guilty nor innocent – but with varying degrees of sharpness, vulnerability and complexity.
PICTURE ART:

Our own basis of life

Is art that takes a value position marginalized? The artist duo Book and Hedén's exhibition Real Adventures has a no-bullshit filter that is a rarity in the Norwegian art world.

FILM (Click here for our supplement MODERN TIMES REVIEW)

FICTION:

The urge to be seen and recognized


HBO: Succession
The controversy in the media mogul family over the corporate throne escalates further in the HBO series Succession, which in an impressive and captivating way is able to take the pulse of the present and big capitalist business at its most brutal.
911:

Do the right thing


Spike Lee: NYC EPICENTERS 911-> 2021½
Spike Lee's documentary series, which now airs on HBONordic, is a comprehensive depiction of New York – interspersed with memories, stories and insights from eyewitnesses to the city's largest terrorist attack.

Full 100-page MODERN TIMES including the appendix Orientering and Modern Times Review comes out quarterly (March 1, June 1, September 1 and December 1) with international book reviews, essays and comments – in addition to the physical newspaper and PDF, the articles are eventually published online here (see also the newsletter).

© MODERN TIMES & Orientering AS Dronningensgt. 16, 0152 Oslo Chief editor: Truls Lie

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