Search results

Populism and conspiracism are historically and conceptually intertwined. Conspiracism offers narratives that supports simplified and binary worldviews. Confronted with a complex and rapidly changing world, it provides order. With its suspicions of global elites and distrust of official accounts, it is particularly amenable to populism. Populism and conspiracism also present the same conundrum to those who wish to diminish their influence: critiques of populism and conspiracism inevitably reinforce the social and political dynamics that animate populism and conspiracism in the first place. These critiques distance individuals, groups and movements that one finds objectionable—these people become the culturally repugnant other. Focusing on the example of QAnon, I ague that critiques of populism mirror earlier critiques of fundamentalism. In response, I draw on political theology to argue that populism and conspiracism should not be opposed as inappropriate political styles, but on the basis of the racist and xenophobic ends to which they are directed.

AbstractDonald Trump's election as president certainly startled many, though not all political observers. In this article, I offer my own observation that Mr Trump's election represents a developmental progression of America's electoral system from a political process to an entertainment process. The effect of the office of the president now is to distract and entertain. I will aim to convince readers that his election as America's president is not an anomaly, but rather represents how the politics of image and representation now work as an everyday event and should be treated as part of a reality that we should now take for granted.

Transcendental materialism is a philosophical perspective that uses German Idealism, Marxism, psychoanalysis and natural science to offer a materialist account of subjectivity and culture. This essay compares this philosophical framework with recent work in the study of religion (Manuel Vásquez) and philosophy of religion (Kevin Schilbrack and Thomas A. Lewis). While transcendental materialism has until now been unconcerned with religion, it offers parallels with this recent work. It differs, however, in its specific understanding of the material dimension of the dialectical relationship between abstraction/conceptuality and practice/embodiment.

The article focuses on Foucault's theories of self-confession present in Christian governmentality and the influence on Western society. In comparison, the author analyzes the works of Talal Asad, Jeremy Tambling and John Cassian with regards to St. Augustine's stoic elements in understanding of the self. References. Adapted from the source document.