“The long fight simply to know.”

“The long fight simply to know.”

An exchange with Peter Kaufman It is not often a writer comes along who brings the ballast of history to our contemporary predicaments. This requires a certain intellectual depth and a lot of shoulder in contact with the wheel. Peter…

“The lethality of algorithms.”

“The lethality of algorithms.”

The anatomy of digital censorship. This is the second of two pieces on the practice of heresthetics. The first piece can be found here. In Part 1 of this essay, I introduced the concept of heresthetics, the art of shaping the…

"Saints and sinners."

“Saints and sinners.”

Heresthetics as political art. This is the first of a two-part series.  Structuring the world so you can win. This sounds like sorcery, but in politics there is a phenomenon known among the social scientists as heresthetics, and it has…

“Sino–Russian amity, Ch. 2.”

“Sino–Russian amity, Ch. 2.”

Washington as matchmaker. There is abundant evidence deriving from White House tapes and an apparently endless series of biographies, histories, and documentaries that for most of their time at the pinnacle of power, President Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his chief foreign policy adviser…

“The divine right of nations.”

“The divine right of nations.”

Reflections on the Fourth. On cue Saturday afternoon, the martial music began on the classical station that has provided this household’s sound track for many years. It can’t be helped. There is no getting away from this sort of thing…