Having watched the world’s most powerful nation fall backwards into the plumbing of populist discontent, Australia now seems oddly determined to follow, enthusiastically participating in its own self-flushing disaster.
Having watched the world’s most powerful nation fall backwards into the plumbing of populist discontent, Australia now seems oddly determined to follow, enthusiastically participating in its own self-flushing disaster.
The court of red caps and lacquered smiles now finds itself chained to a king who mistakes appetite for destiny and spectacle for wisdom at precisely the historical moment requiring restraint, literacy, diplomacy, patience, and institutional coherence.
Malakacene: the long historical moment in which technologically mediated societies stopped selecting primarily for competence, wisdom, restraint, and institutional responsibility, and instead became increasingly vulnerable to the rapid propagation of spectacle, grievance, aggression, narcissism, and performative certainty masquerading as leadership.
Enter a Chorus, beholding the Republic as a cracked glass. Behold the man, not monster, but a mirror, Wherein an age, long sick yet self-amazed, Doth spy its own deformity and cry, “Lo, greatness!” He is no thunderbolt from heaven cast, But weather bred within the common air: Distrust made flesh, grievance given tongue, Ambition […]
It has probably always been the case that seeking respite from the endless surge of unhinged political stupidity feels futile, exasperating, and frightening. Watching poorly understood belief systems grind on, reproducing themselves through humanity as distributed patterns of alignment within the communicative field rather than arising from deliberate, individual choice, is unsettling. The fear comes […]