There is something deeply strange about the fact that the people who benefit most from capitalism are often its loudest critics. University professors with tenure, writers with publishing deals, journalists at major outlets, artists funded by grants or wealthy patrons. These are not the wretched of the earth. They are, by any historical standard, among […]
Why Intellectuals Hate Capitalism, According to Schumpeter Read More »
Your boss has probably never read a single page of Das Kapital. They might not even know the difference between Marx and Engels. But they hate Karl Marx. Not the person, necessarily. They hate what he represents. They hate the questions he asked, because those questions have a nasty habit of making the answers uncomfortable.
You scrolled for forty minutes last night. You know this because your phone told you so, in that passive aggressive weekly report it sends like a concerned parent. And what did you gain? A vague sense that everyone is on vacation, everyone is in love, and everyone has better abs than you. This is not
Why Your Instagram Feed Never Makes You Happy (A Schopenhauerian Answer) Read More »
There is something almost comic about the way we argue. We gather our facts. We line them up neatly like soldiers. We march them toward the opposing view with full confidence that the sheer weight of evidence will do the work. And then nothing happens. The other person blinks, nods politely, and goes right on
Why Facts Don’t Change Minds: The Deeper Structure of Belief Read More »
There is something almost comedic about it. A 19th century German philosopher who went insane, wrote in aphorisms, and once declared God dead has become the most quoted thinker in podcasts, self help lectures, and online intellectual culture. Friedrich Nietzsche shows up everywhere. Jordan Peterson references him constantly. So does Sam Harris. So do the
Why Jordan Peterson (and Others) Keep Returning to Friedrich Nietzsche Read More »
Max Weber died in 1920, which means he never had to spend forty minutes on hold with his insurance company, only to be transferred three times and then disconnected. He never filled out forms in triplicate. He never received an email asking him to complete a survey about his experience filling out a form. And
The Bureaucracy Diet: How to Survive a World Built on Red Tape Read More »
Arthur Schopenhauer spent most of his life being ignored. He published his masterwork, The World as Will and Representation, at age thirty. It sold almost nothing. He lectured at the University of Berlin, scheduling his classes to compete directly with Hegel, the most famous philosopher in Germany. Students chose Hegel. Schopenhauer lectured to empty rooms.
Friedrich Nietzsche saw something disturbing in the world around him. It wasn’t poverty or war or disease. It was something more insidious: a moral system that celebrated weakness and punished strength. He called it slave morality, and he believed it was poisoning Western civilization from within. The German philosopher’s critique cuts deeper than most people
The Culture of the Weak: Friedrich Nietzsche’s Warning to Society Read More »
Karl Marx spent his life analyzing how capitalism shapes society. He wrote about alienation, commodity fetishism, and the ways economic systems warp human relationships. If he were alive today, he’d probably take one look at TikTok, understand exactly what it was doing to us, and delete the app immediately. Not because he’d be a boomer
Your authentic self is probably holding you back. I know how that sounds. We live in an age where authenticity is the supreme virtue. Bring your whole self to work. Be genuine. Stay true to who you are. The self help section of every bookstore groans under the weight of books telling you to dig
Stop Being “Authentic” and Start Being Efficient Read More »