Kobe and Pascal

2024

Jun 1

Notes on Christopher Hill's 'The World Turned Upside Down'

Some quotes, notes and scribblings on a now famous book on the age of infant Capitalism in England – “The World Turned Upside Down” by Christopher Hill. It is remarkable how contemporary these seedlings of revolution feel, the ethics, shared understandings of power, and the materialism of so much of the so called sacred world of authority. These folks were far from …

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2023

Nov 10

Notes on Minqi Li's 'The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy

Notes on a terrific work in political economy. Extremely pertinent to our present. “Suppose, in response to the current crisis of neoliberalism, global capitalism is restructured with a greater degree of state intervention and more equal distribution of income (is this not what much of the world’s intellectual Left is hoping for at the moment?), would it not be expected that in at most …

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Jun 16

Unique by Castoriadis

It is possible that at times people drape themselves in Roman tunics to play the bourgeois revolution—or that a general wnats to play Joan of Arc in twentieth-century dress; but how is it that, in real history, it is never Zerlina who replies to Agamemnon and that Brutus never has Monsieur Perrichon for his friend and confidant? - Cornelius Castoriadis
Apr 21

And Quite Flows the Don

By Mikhail Sholokhov, How human beings have sullied, have poisoned the world! How much human misery has been poured out! She turned passionately towards Bunchuk and sought for his hand. ‘Tell me, wouldn’t it be sweet to die for that? Tell me! Yes? What is there to believe in, if not in that? What is one to live for? It seems to me that if I die in the struggle…’ She …

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Mar 26

The Past by Gorky

This is not meant as a reproach. The past is not irreproachable, but there is no sense in reproaching it. It should be studied. – Maxim Gorky

2022

Dec 24

Some Reflections on 'The Gift' by Marcel Mauss

A few excerpts from the tremendous text. “These peoples [Melanesian tribes] possess an extra domestic economy and a very developed system of exchange that throbs with life more intensely and more precipitantly perhaps than the one that our peasants or the fishing villages along our coasts were familiar with maybe not even a hundred years ago. They have an extensive economic life, going …

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Oct 8

Computational Biology for Autodidacts

“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today” – Malcolm X Once upon a time I was labouring about with pipettes in hand, cutting and pasting plasmids, asking questions about the edibility of my agarose gels. I eventually parted ways with the wet lab and moved into teaching myself Computational skills that I could apply to …

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Sep 21

The Eternal Now by Paul Tillich

What follows are some of my favorite excerpts from the Theologian Paul Tillich’s book ‘The Eternal Now’. They withdraw into a self-chosen loneliness, taking revenge through bitterness and hostility towards those they feel have rejected them, actually enjoying the pain of their loneliness. One of these ways is the desire towards the silence of nature. We can speak without voice to …

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Sep 6

Was Too Small by Bertolt Brecht

Shen Teh: Yes, it is me. Shui Ta and Shen Teh, I am both of them. Your original order To be good while yet surviving Split me like lightning into two people. I Cannot tell what occurred: goodness to others And to myself could not both be achieved. To serve both self and others I found too hard. Oh, your world is arduous! Such need, such description! The hand which is held out to the starving

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