Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is one of the great records of 19th-century American consciousness. Ruminating on the concept of whiteness, Melville writes: Not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous––why, as we have seen, it […]
“Once, the Dream’s parameters were caged by technology and by the limits of horsepower and wind. But the Dreamers have improved themselves, and the damming of seas for voltage, the extraction of coal, the transmuting of oil into food, have enabled an expansion in plunder with no known precedent. And this revolution has freed the […]
Of the many paradoxes that bedevil human nature, one of the most intriguing is our tendency to seek out freedom while simultaneously longing for submission. American philosopher Josiah Royce understood this well: We profoundly want both to rule and to be ruled. We must be each of us at the centre of his own active […]
“We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller. Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lung the brain the heart. Forty […]
Prefatory Note: This essay constitutes a new experiment for words&dirt. I’ve recently been inspired by some of my readers, as well as an excellent interview with Maria Popova, to write a reflection on my last year of reading. Many book enthusiasts use the New Year as an opportunity to create “Best Of” lists, but I’ve […]
Bernie Sanders’s bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination has been an inspiration to progressives across America. As the only genuine alternative to the pseudo-liberal policies of Hillary Clinton, Bernie speaks openly about the scourge of socioeconomic inequality, big money’s influence in politics, the threat of climate change, the excesses of Wall Street, corporate oligarchy, racial […]
“I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the general postoffice of human life.” ––Ulysses, by James Joyce, pg. 486 “‘When I talk about a political revolution, what I am referring to is the need […]
“BLOOM: (In workman’s corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap) Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Raleigh brought from the new world that potato and that weed, the one killer of pestilence by absorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye, heart, memory, will, understanding, all. That is to say, he […]
“Sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We are means to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends than we.” ––Ulysses, by James Joyce, pg. 387 “The fight for a national health care system today is not basically different than the struggle for universal public education that took place in this […]
“Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.” ––Ulysses, by James Joyce, pg. 213 “I cannot emphasize enough how important it was that we developed ‘coalition politics.’ The way to rekindle hope in America, we […]