During this upcoming week in the United States there will be the 58th presidential election of which the two major candidates contending for holding that office will be former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Democratic) and Mr. Donald Trump (Republican). If you’ve been paying any attention in the last 12 months, it’s been quite an election season. Therefore, in this week, we’re going to turn our attention to some political thought.
ARTICLES
The New York Times Magazine: The Party That Wants to Make Poland Great Again. James Traub.
+ The history and rise of populism in Poland, the most Western of Eastern Bloc countries…that is slowly turning away from Western liberalism
+ The implications of populism in Poland for places like Britain and the US
+ I gave some in-depth opinion on this in my post “A Retreat From the End of History”
Quartz: Slavoj Žižek on Donald Trump: Why other philosophers won’t engage in public affairs. Olivia Goodhill.
+ Philosophy and philosophers used to be integral to civil affairs in the past and no longer
+ Žižek has endorsed Trump; it’s troublesome that it takes on the tone that ‘philosophy as a whole’ (our great thinkers of the world) endorse Trump if only because no other philosophers have deigned to provide their opinion
+ Does the retreat of “serious” philosophy from the public sphere diminish its value to the world?
The New Yorker: The Borowitz Report: Putin Appears With Trump in a Flurry of Swing-State Rallies. Andy Borowitz.
+ This is satire! It is not real! – Important to emphasize…
+ Mainly because you had to check to confirm that
+ There is a certain amount of truth / conspiracy theory to the interference of foreign powers in elections; this is the first time it’s has teetered/lived more on the side of “truth” versus “conspiracy theory” in present conversation (and not in historical investigation) and between two major states (i.e. US versus Russia)
Final Thoughts
It has been a busy, busy world in politics this year from Lindsey Lohan becoming the new voice of Turkey, Labour plotting to prevent the implementation of Article 50 in response to the 52%/48% “Leave” result of the Brexit referendum in June. What does it all mean? That is hard to say, but I think it would behoove most people to pay a little less attention to who’s going to be beaten up next on The Walking Dead and a bit more to who is being beaten up in the polls.
It’s a wild, wild world out there, enjoy the extra hour if daylight’s savings ended for you today and have a good weekend.
Cassandra John 