Leonard Benardo

I am astonished again and again when I find out how little it has penetrated into people's consciousness that the right of resistance, namely civil disobedience, is a right higher than positive law and as old as civilization itself.
-- Herbert Marcuse

The choice of photo is absolutely brilliant, Russell and Vanessa Redgrave. Thanks @lbenardo.bsky.social

“Bloodless Pedantry” - The Ideas Letter The academic study of philosophy tends to inspire contempt, from within and from without. Stephen Hawking’s pompous pronouncement in 2010 that “philosophy is dead” is just one version of a…

I wrote something about analytic Philospphy, and Christoph Schuringa’s book for the Ideas Letter @stefanschubert.bsky.social @lbenardo.bsky.social www.theideasletter.org/essay/bloodl...

Freedom of speech isn't a divine right, even in America Insisting we can say anything is a political idea that may not suit our violent, polarised times

From cancel culture to Maga’s assault on campuses, defending my enemy has become decimating my enemy. @lbenardo.bsky.social asks: can our ideals of free speech survive, and should we want them to?

No Country for a Woman | China Books Review Women in China have suffered abuse, silencing and erasure — despite the Communist Party’s slogans about women’s liberation. Two novels by the Wuhan writer Fang Fang show how gendered oppression persis...

I published two pieces on women in China this week! First, a review essay @chinabooksreview.com on two Fang Fang novels, Soft Burial & The Running Flame (tr. Michael Berry). Gendered oppression has persisted during the socialist period and capitalist reforms, despite the CCP's promise of liberation.

Freedom of speech isn't a divine right, even in America Insisting we can say anything is a political idea that may not suit our violent, polarised times

The absolutist position on free speech—I might hate your words, but I shall defend to the death your right to say them—may not be right for an age of raw and extreme polarisation, writes @lbenardo.bsky.social.

Freedom of speech isn't a divine right, even in America Insisting we can say anything is a political idea that may not suit our violent, polarised times

Insisting on absolute free speech is a political idea that may not suit our violent, polarised times, writes @lbenardo.bsky.social.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/fre...

Compared, say, to most African, Asian, Middle Eastern universities, the American university constitutes a relatively utopian space where we can actually talk, rather than being part of the political system with academic appointments being outright political ones.
-- Edward Said (2000)

Three Chicago character types

At @open-society.bsky.social, our fellows play a crucial role in reinforcing restless critical thought. Today, I congratulate the 31 public intellectuals who will join us as 2025 Fellows.

In 1967, philosopher of language Michael Dummett and his wife, the author Ann Dummett, were arrested for picketing against racial discrimination, charged with public disorder, but acquitted upon an official admission that the police, not protesters, had obstructed passage.

Congrats on this Alani. Looking forward to digging in!

What about ownership of the 1960s-designed game Twister? I’d say, globally, US might also be at 75%.

Recognition of the right of resistance, namely civil disobedience, belongs to the oldest and most sanctified elements of Western civilization.
-- Herbert Marcuse

The greatest pop-rock/singer-songwriter record you may not know is Kevin Ayres’ 1973 masterpiece Bananamour

Spengler meets Adorno! Can I buy you a drink, Nils?

Grove Press retained Norman Mailer's cousin Charles Rembar to challenge the Post Office's seizure of Lady Chatterley in 1959, the 2nd Circuit agreeing that, especially given Archibald MacLeish's endorsement, the work met J Brennan's slightest redeeming social importance standard.

This volume (1937) was a political science staple for three decades - Plato to fascism - George Sabine professor of philosophy @Cornell, also a carpenter and blacksmith, assisted Herbert Marcuse with his 1941 work Reason and Revolution.

Herbert Marcuse suggested that the way to evaluate acts of rebellion, transgressive speech, etc., would be to ask whether these have a "transparent educational function" under the circumstances, eg by revealing "hidden cruelties" or the class character of the interrupted proceeding.

Happy Birthday to the great John Brown, born 225 years ago today

Do you guys think Villanova is going to start saying things like “Pope Leo XIV (class of 77)”?

The new composition of the Supreme Court institutionalizes the progress of reaction.
-- Herbert Marcuse (1972)

Moebius, poster art for Les Chiens, 1978

Moebius, poster art for Les Chiens, 1978

Reflections on an Inverted Revolution - The Ideas Letter The U.S. extreme right has torn a page from Leninism and is carrying out a Bolshevik-style revolution with inverted values. The class state that Lenin and Gramsci believed must be…

Dylan Riley @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social argues that "We are living through an inverted revolution. The political heirs of Lenin and Gramsci are leading a right-wing transformation from the White House rather than a left-wing one from the streets." Read here www.theideasletter.org/essay/reflec...

The Wealth of Theory - The Ideas Letter Bernard E. Harcourt and Dylan Riley are two of today’s foremost social theorists, Harcourt at Columbia and Riley at Berkeley. We are privileged, in our Issue 39, to feature their…

Two new essays on President Trump's first 100 days "endeavor to develop a new framework and a new conceptual vocabulary to apprehend our dismal moment." One is titled "A Modern Counterrevolution," the other "Reflections on an Inverted Revolution." Read here:
www.theideasletter.org/issue/the-we...

Intellectual Historians Confront the Present - The Ideas Letter Intellectual history is having an unanticipated resurgence—and that resurgence is taking place largely outside academia. A newer generation of historians is responding to job precarity by publishing i...

Plus: an intense interview by the brilliant Leonard Benardo @lbenardo.bsky.social turning the tables, as it were, on the legal historian Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social : www.theideasletter.org/essay/intell...

Trump has found in El Salvador a model for the repressive state he wants to build – and he’s just getting started | Jordana Timerman Nayib Bukele has shown how brutal control can be sustained not just through force, but by raising the cost of speaking out, says journalist Jordana Timerman

Until Trump, none of Bukele’s would-be imitators had managed to get far. Trump understood is that the key isn’t the actual policies, but rather the sustained, brazen assault on the rule of law, which in itself appears to be “doing something” about the problems.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

With a woman as the narrator.

Not all progress is good.