Recent-ish Reads, August 29, 2025

Our current reactionary moment is as fierce as it is partly because the empirical reality of our dynamically interdependent and positive-sum world—i.e., the opposite of reactionaries' separated, static, and simplified half-brained maps—is becoming more obvious and irrefutable. Here are a handful of recent writings in which that process-relational reality shines through.

First and maybe most directly on point, a recent Marginalian newsletter re-upped a lovely piece from the archives about the permeable, relational, interdependent reality of our being.

The Power of a Thin Skin

“To be thin-skinned is to feel keenly, to perceive things that might go unseen, unnoticed, that others might prefer not to notice.”

The MarginalianMaria Popova

Next, not all DEI is process-relational, but process-relational reality necessarily embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion as not just aspirations but core components of what makes our complex and emergent world regenerate. The enemy, fascism, is centrally opposed to this reality at the core of everything they think and do. In that light, this concrete call to action couldn't be more timely or spot-on.

More DEI! Louder!

Racism has turned a corporate buzzword into a moral imperative.

How Things WorkHamilton Nolan

It probably comes as no surprise that this blog author is mildly obsessed with the legendary New Yorker fact checkers. They're masters of getting things less wrong: a process involving productive conflict, "forced humility," and wide webs of connections. The first sentence of this story, by a former fact checker turned staff writer, is "I turned in this piece with seventy-nine errors." Marvelous. (Archive link, no paywall)

The History of The New Yorker’s Vaunted Fact-Checking Department

Reporters engage in charm and betrayal; checkers are in the harm-reduction business.

The New YorkerZach Helfand

This one's a smidge more academic, but worth it. It looks at universal basic income and 32-hour work week proposals to liberate people from work. Through the lens of Hannah Arendt's writings, it argues that while freedom from work-related oppression and freedom for self-determined flourishing untethered to work would certainly be good, they'd be incomplete without another kind of freedom: to interactively participate in the governance of common world affairs through pluralistic, democratic decision-making.

Thijs Keulen (University of Edinburgh), “Freedom From or Freedom in Work? Post-Work Proposals and Hannah Arendt’s Conception of Political Freedom”

Forthcoming, Contellations

New Work in PhilosophyMarcus Arvan

Finally, a short, punchy, vivid, righteously angry, and well-sourced rant against AI's flattening of human experience, its erasure of qualitative meaning and context, and its damnable goals in general. I can't pick one quote, just read it.

I Am An AI Hater

I am an AI hater. This is considered rude, but I do not care, because I am a hater.

moser’s frame shopmoser’s frame shop