Essays
THE CURRENCY OF CONVICTIONS
On the political economy of believing in public: conviction is what happens when a belief discovers its market value.
THE MERITOCRACY OF SORROW
How the art world turns suffering into clout and manufactures its masochists The art world has discovered a remarkable solution to the problem of inequality: make suffering a qualification for admission. You need not possess inherited wealth, institutional connections, or the reassuring complexion of someone who has never had to explain themselves to a landlord.…
HOW TO DEAL WITH HINDUTVA MACHIAVELLIS
A field guide to strategic ambiguity, manufactured outrage, and the politics of getting under your skin For Clout Economics There is a particular kind of political operator who understands that power does not always need to win an argument. Sometimes it needs to change the subject, exhaust its opponents, make cruelty look like common sense,…
COCKROACH JANTA PARTY
Or, The Revolution Will Be Monetised, Retweeted, and Subsequently Forgotten. A Situationist exposé in several acts of unnecessary political theatre.
THE ENTREPRENEUR OF THE SELF
Why people who must keep proving their own worth end up dependent on the audience they hoped would free them, and what it would mean to matter without having to win. About 20 minutes.
The Political Theology of Clout
Reads clout as a theological promise: that you can become real through the recognition of others, and that doing so requires faith. About 4 minutes.