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.

What is Modernity?

My worry is that, as alienating and bad as things are now, that the cessation of modernity might be followed by merely swapping one savagery for another. We like to believe that the world is growing less brutal and less violent, but the moral arc of the universe doesn’t bend towards justice: there is no arc. There is no absolute, inevitable progress. Everything that we get, we need to push for, fight for, argue for. It’s possible that the world might be a better and more just place if the modern era had never happened, but it has happened. If it is undone, it will most likely be undone through a great deal of suffering.

Cathderals of the Eye and Tongue: Notes on Social Construction

Social Construction is less like building a shed in your back yard and more like the process by which stone carvers and carpenters and artisans of all stripes built up a medieval cathedral. Each one adds their own twist to it, reinterpreting a master plan that was conceived of before they were born and would be realized long after they die. It is not construction in the sense of the finished building but in the sense of an ongoing process.