Now, I’ve had a lot of thoughts on genre fiction in the past, and this list is going to be more useful for people interested in writing a secondary world story, with a particular (but not exclusive) eye towards fantasy fiction. As a result of a number of factors, there are going to be several works that I often make use of in my political thoughts, but this list isn’t primarily or solely focused on that.

Personalizing the Impersonal: on Hyperobjects, etc.

It becomes increasingly clear that what we are exploring is not a something-else but a something of which we, of which I and you and Cameron in the kitchen, are already a part. Something else is going on.

Anti-Romulus: Notes on the Peculiar Institution of Self

In short, the dominant western conception of self – the Cartesian dichotomy between the mind and the body – is ultimately based on a Roman legal fiction that was originally used to justify slavery. We all conceive of ourselves this way, and it brings with it a cloud of other associations that imply a variety of relations (property and hierarchy, first and foremost) that have been naturalized because this fiction doesn’t make sense without them, and it makes it impossible to root them out so long as the fiction remains in place.

Cameron's Book Round-Up -- 2020, part 1

Okay, I knew I was going to do these on the Facebook page, but I haven’t done that, and I’m under a great deal of time pressure right now — I had to get a replacement phone yesterday, and in 12 days begin my first class intended to be a completely online class. So…yeah. Let’s jump in to the seventeen books I’ve read thus far this year.

What is the Point of Society?

If you have to come back and play this game tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, then there is only one sensible strategy: cooperate. Accept the lesser reward, and get it tomorrow. Because there’s no reason to trust a betrayer when they come back for another round of the game. But I’m still left with another question: what does it do? What is society even for?