MANAGER
Death – more or less real
THE REALITY: We perceive reality very differently. Let me therefore suggest three areas where reality is real, strong and direct for all of us. But also what a new translated book by Pier Paolo Pasolini says about the film's contact with reality.
When violence becomes the only thing
POWER: According to Hannah Arendt, the use of violence, weapons and bombs renders us politically speechless. Can her particular analyzes of power teach us anything about the violence that is being carried out from and in Gaza today?
Cities in crisis
RECONSTRUCTION: This appendix gives the war's destruction of cities and towns in Ukraine and the need for reconstruction the most attention.
Utopias about community
FUTURE: Are we moving towards an international society that takes care of those who fall outside the established working life – and wisely converts today's military industry towards civilian tasks? It is possible that the new BRICS may point the way away from current Western ideology.
Totalitarianism then and now
iDEOLOGY: By agreeing on a suitable 'enemy', a disintegrated society finds coherence, energy and meaning. A totalitarian propaganda has led to the conclusion that Ukraine will now be allowed to use F-16 jets against the nuclear power Russia – with the major consequences this may entail.
ChatGPT – an impersonal paradigm shift?
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Is it only now that individualism, the cultivation of individuals, with new technology such as ChatGPT, is about to change?
Fascinating fascism and seductive drivers
NEO-FASCISM: Do many still have fascist longings today, or can one always blame seductive leaders? A closer dive into the 100-year-old Italian fascism and its descendants says something about the dangers we are now likely to face.
Two testaments over life
Hell: Is it possible to simultaneously touch on four major themes, such as sin and evil, the desire for knowledge and conquest, relationships and competition, or the fear of death itself? Let me try in this essay – about Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Dante.
Book reviews
Why do we always ask why men commit acts of violence, instead of asking why they don't allow it?
FEMICID: Murders of women do not only occur structurally and not only based on misogynistic motives – they are also largely trivialized or go unpunished.
Old new in new packaging
MEMORIES: Nostalgia has been made into a commercial product that makes the past a constant and pressing presence. Do we really belong in a past tense? Memories are today produced, preserved and managed by commercial actors, by cultural products – which, to say it with Marx, are fetishized. Pop cultural products of the past are recycled, made into collectibles and picture books for the coffee table, sold as retro designs.
The iguaca parrots no longer sing
THE CLIMATE CRISIS: This book makes all other climate literature seem dangerously anthropocentric. We obviously haven't been very good at monitoring the earthly paradise.
A mentality from the Cold War era
INTELLIGENCE: In the United States, 18 different U.S. agencies at the government level are engaged in intelligence activities. In 1996 there were 6 million decisions to declassify material – by 2016 this had grown to 55 million!
A mental and military turning point
GERMANY: How 'war-ready' should a country be? With a number of top positions in international politics, crisis management and security, security expert Carlo Masala is regarded as an undeniable authority in the field.
