Peter Finke – Gero Jenner. A case of doppelgangerism?

This week I encountered an amazing book “Mut zum Gaiazän” (a possible translation of the German title would be “Let’s embrace the Gaiacene”). The book didn’t amaze me because I found its contents particularly new or exciting. Quite the opposite. It seemed familiar to me from the start because it deals with just about all the issues that have preoccupied myself over the past thirty years. The parallels between my own spiritual biography and that of Mr. Finke are unmistakable – but so are the enormous differences. Peter Finke – Gero Jenner. A case of doppelgangerism? weiterlesen

The Fires spewed by the Dragon – How Tradition Lives on in China

Notes on the China book by Desmond Shum (Red Roulette: An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today’s China)

The Fires spewed by the Dragon – How Tradition Lives on in China weiterlesen

The Lucifer Principle

(Conversation between Lucifer, Howard Bloom and a certain GJ – statements in italics are quotes from Bloom)

The Lucifer Principle weiterlesen

Max Weber – Jared Diamond – Joseph Henrich

There are fundamental questions that every human being and probably every people and epoch ask themselves. Who or what am I? Why and how am I different from others? What is it that makes me singular? Max Weber, Jared Diamond, and Joseph Henrich have each asked this question in their own yet very similar ways. Max Weber – Jared Diamond – Joseph Henrich weiterlesen

Adam Tooze – An experts’s review of ten years of global economic crisis

Recently (on 14 August) I had the good fortune to follow an interview with the British historian Adam Tooze on Austrian Radio. I was so impressed that I immediately took to reading his book „Crashed. How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World“ (Allen Lane 2018) ) – and so an important work finally reached me with a two-year delay. These are my comments:

Adam Tooze – An experts’s review of ten years of global economic crisis weiterlesen

The snow of yesterday is today’s Deluge – Remarks on an amazing book by Daniela Dahn

There are books – and, alas, they make up the vast majority – that one skims over because they offer nothing more than facts that we barely take note of. There are others where each sentence acquires importance because it expresses an attitude, a person’s relationship to the world, and therefore urges the reader to take a stand. I was recently allowed to read one such book, its author is Daniela Dahn. She writes about the injustice that Germany’s Western half has done to the citizens of the East, calling on the West to reflect on its failures. What so much pleases me about this book – even though its theses are anything but pleasant – is its honesty. In times of generalized dishonesty, where arguments mostly serve as weapons in the struggle of parties, this is a refreshing book. Let us listen to the author’s own words.

The snow of yesterday is today’s Deluge – Remarks on an amazing book by Daniela Dahn weiterlesen

Logical refutation of Noam Chomsky’s famous trees – the essence of his theory of language

The fascination of Chomsky’s theory of language is due to the fact that it seems to derive linguistic diversity and complexity from a simple starting point. After Chomsky, a whole generation of linguists was busy with drawing all these elusive inverted trees. Let us stick to a simple example:

Logical refutation of Noam Chomsky’s famous trees – the essence of his theory of language weiterlesen

Vivat America! (Nevertheless)

The call may sound rather strange. America? Isn’t that the country where a populist president divides his own countrymen like no one before him sowing the seeds of mistrust even in up to then friendly and allied nations? Vivat America! (Nevertheless) weiterlesen

Hitler, Arendt, Hoffer: Or: The Genius as Proletarian

He could have been a typical representative of the proletariat, for in his life he never got beyond casual work as a harvest worker and longshoreman and, in his youth, had not even been able to attend school. Hitler, Arendt, Hoffer: Or: The Genius as Proletarian weiterlesen

Sarrazin reloaded

The best known example of a shitstorm of recent origin is, of course, the “case Sarrazin”. In his book „Deutschland schafft sich ab“ (Germany is about to abolish itself), 95% of his evidence had been drawn from relevant scientific publications, while the last 5% (particularly his comments on the relative importance of the environment versus genetic predisposition) were a matter of legitimate scientific controversy. The professional publications he used had, however, only reached the tiny audience of researchers with similar interests, that is why they had practically escaped all public attention. Sarrazin reloaded weiterlesen

Ishiguro – Kehlmann – Houellebecq, a European triad of literary fame

Writers are said to represent the conscience of their time, the finest seismographs for the tectonic shifts of the soul. The three writers mentioned above are among the greatest in their respective linguistic areas, the English, the German and the French. What conclusions can be drawn from their works with regard to the state of mind prevalent among Europeans? Ishiguro – Kehlmann – Houellebecq, a European triad of literary fame weiterlesen