About
I’ve been meaning for a while now to be one of those empowered and responsive digital information consumers that everyone’s always talking about. This is me following through.
As a general note, I’m going to make mistakes (of content and etiquette), and when I do please don’t hesitate to call me out.
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Relevant biographical details:
I am a recovering graduate student writing from New York—currently looking for something to do with my Masters degree—who reads more news on the Internet than is probably advisable for someone who’s not somehow paid for it. My research focuses on the social theorist Jurgen Habermas and social change in the Internet era, though I’ve also done a lot of work on international politics.
I’m Canadian, male, and preponderantly white (I found out pretty recently that I’m a quarter Metis—a hybrid Canadian ethnic group of plains aboriginals and French trappers whose rebellions caused the creation of both Manitoba and Saskatchewan). I was raised Catholic, though I don’t practice anymore and tend to identify myself unenthusiastically as agnostic.
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On ideology:
On the question of political standpoint, I tend to agree most with center-left policy initiatives (in practice, if not always in spirit), but if you catch me repeating a dogma from whatever political perspective out of rote, please challenge me on it.
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On the title:
The blog title refers to the story of Odysseus and the sirens, interpreted by the critical theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno as an allegory for the relation of the man to truth (… beauty… the sublime): he can perceive it, but were he free to grasp it, he would destroy himself in doing so. The ship’s unbound crew members row on with beeswax in their ears, deaf to the beauty and promise in the sirens’ song; safely untouched by it. Odysseus could similarly have stopped his ears, knowing the danger of the song, but he was overcome with curiosity. Knowing it would kill him were he free, he binds himself to the mast.
I would rather be Odysseus than his deafened men. I want to hear truth and beauty and engage with them, even if I can never grasp them, and even if that means rope burn.
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Themes to expect in this blog (subject to change):
- US politics
- Canadian politics (in comparison)
- The interpretive lens of critical theory
- The media
- The Internet
- The UN
- Middle-East politics
- Post-Soviet politics
- Central Asian politics (O Turkmenbashi! How I miss thee!)
- Jurisprudence (rather amateur I predict)
- Movies (fav director at the moment: Lars von Trier)
- TV (shows on the go at the moment: Mad Men and Top Chef. I’m quasi-desperate for Lost to start up again.)
- NBA basketball (fav team: the Raptors)
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