77,850 books
—
290,474 voters
“A man of genius belongs to no period and no country. He speaks the language of nature, which is always everywhere the same.”
― Essays of Montaigne
― Essays of Montaigne
“Neo-China arrives from the future.”
― Ccru: Writings 1997-2003
― Ccru: Writings 1997-2003
“The slow cancellation of the future has been accompanied by a deflation of expectations. There can be few who believe that in the coming year a record as great as, say, the Stooges’ Funhouse or Sly Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On will be released. Still less do we expect the kind of ruptures brought about by The Beatles or disco. The feeling of belatedness, of living after the gold rush, is as omnipresent as it is disavowed. Compare the fallow terrain of the current moment with the fecundity of previous periods and you will quickly be accused of ‘nostalgia’. But the reliance of current artists on styles that were established long ago suggests that the current moment is in the grip of a formal nostalgia, of which more shortly.
It is not that nothing happened in the period when the slow cancellation of the future set in. On the contrary, those thirty years has been a time of massive, traumatic change. In the UK, the election of Margaret Thatcher had brought to an end the uneasy compromises of the so-called postwar social consensus. Thatcher’s neoliberal programme in politics was reinforced by a transnational restructuring of the capitalist economy. The shift into so-called Post-Fordism – with globalization, ubiquitous computerization and the casualisation of labour – resulted in a complete transformation in the way that work and leisure were organised. In the last ten to fifteen years, meanwhile, the internet and mobile telecommunications technology have altered the texture of everyday experience beyond all recognition. Yet, perhaps because of all this, there’s an increasing sense that culture has lost the ability to grasp and articulate the present. Or it could be that, in one very important sense, there is no present to grasp and articulate anymore.”
― Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures
It is not that nothing happened in the period when the slow cancellation of the future set in. On the contrary, those thirty years has been a time of massive, traumatic change. In the UK, the election of Margaret Thatcher had brought to an end the uneasy compromises of the so-called postwar social consensus. Thatcher’s neoliberal programme in politics was reinforced by a transnational restructuring of the capitalist economy. The shift into so-called Post-Fordism – with globalization, ubiquitous computerization and the casualisation of labour – resulted in a complete transformation in the way that work and leisure were organised. In the last ten to fifteen years, meanwhile, the internet and mobile telecommunications technology have altered the texture of everyday experience beyond all recognition. Yet, perhaps because of all this, there’s an increasing sense that culture has lost the ability to grasp and articulate the present. Or it could be that, in one very important sense, there is no present to grasp and articulate anymore.”
― Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures
“For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”
― The German Ideology / Theses on Feuerbach / Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy
― The German Ideology / Theses on Feuerbach / Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy
THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP
— 2720 members
— last activity 32 minutes ago
A chance to discuss books covering the Second World War, the battles, campaigns, leaders and weapons. Tantum librorum, tam brevi tempore (So many ...more
Political Philosophy and Ethics
— 6408 members
— last activity Apr 20, 2026 09:48PM
Study and discussion of the important questions of ethical and political philosophy from Confucius and Socrates to the present. Rules (see also the ...more
Allen’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Allen’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Art, Biography, Christian, Classics, Contemporary, Fiction, Historical fiction, History, Memoir, Music, Non-fiction, Philosophy, Poetry, Politics, Religion, Spirituality, Anthropology, Marxist, Anarchist, Fascist, Communist, Metaphysics, Sociology, Philippine History, Postmodernism, Metamodernism, Cinema, and Political Economy
Polls voted on by Allen
Lists liked by Allen














































