Posit Newsletter #04

The Sun Also Sets

The general theme for this issue of Posit is 'ends of the world'. Themes are rather loose in this newsletter, but they help to organize my thinking and the material I gather. In this case, I think it adheres quite well, and maybe that has as much to do with the news as with any curatorial success on my part.

We're at war, again, and it appears to be occurring at a truly terminal time for the world as we've known it. In Munich, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently declared an end to the 'old world order' of international law, and the renewal of "Western Civilization's" dominance and ascent. In essence, he, like Stephen Miller, are asserting a return to the age of 'might makes right'. Their idea of a thousand year reich is absurd, of course; the inevitable decline of western hegemony is clear, as is the destabilization of the climate; both are evidence of an unsustainable course, and neither can be ignored. A few hundred years of industrial and technological progress—enacted through colonial violence and environmentally devastating extraction—is not the basis for an enduring future of the sort the fascists promise. I realize I'm leaning into the emotional language here; it all pisses me off.