philosophy
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1 day agoThe Complexity Curve
Understanding complex issues involves moving from simplicity to complexity and back to a nuanced simplicity.
Anticolonialism, Ontology, and Semiotics draws upon Africana anticolonial philosophy-especially the work of Frantz Fanon and two of his most influential interpreters, Eldridge Cleaver and Sylvia Wynter-to develop a basic analytical model for doing anticolonial political theory. I wanted to show that there is something distinctive, something special, to be found in this tradition of thought that has not been fully appreciated by philosophers and theorists in other fields.
Earlier this week, I expressed exasperation at the seeming irrelevance of what I used to teach in American government classes in the context of what's going on now. Old standbys like "checks and balances," "equal protection of the law" and "judicial review" seem to have been discarded in favor of what Lionel Trilling called "a series of irritable mental gestures." I couldn't imagine how I would teach the class now.