Posts in Close Reading
A Close Read of Ecology of Freedom, Part 4

If our fantasies are simply reflections of our subconscious drives, of the things that we want and hunger for, then the horizon of human life is more limited. If these fantasies are not, then to reduce them to mere reflections is a violence, and to allow this same violence to be perpetrated upon our future is similarly horrific and something that must be struggled against.

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A Close Read of The Ecology of Freedom, Part 3

This isn’t simply a finger-wagging moralizing, though: it’s not simply that you want bad things – on a similar level to the “carrot” of the fulfillment of our propagandized desires, there’s also the limitations forced on us by everything else. Look: not everyone who eats fast food is under the impression that it’s something good or at least neutral – someone may be utterly convinced that it’s poison and still feed it to their kids every day because they have no other option.

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A Close Read of The Ecology of Freedom, Part 2

I am far from an expert on international affairs, and I’m not yet ready to do a book roundup of my own – which will be heavily featuring Japanese literature in translation, in pursuit of a semi-scholarly project I’m working on – so I’m a bit at a loss as to what to write. Hence, I’m going to be continuing my series on Murray Bookchin’s Ecology of Freedom.

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