Entries by E.R.E. Knutsson

Signs of the Times, Part II: Post-Democracy in the Age of Simulation

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Democracy — the exception to the rule in world history — belongs to the unique cultural signature of Western civilization. The societies of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Celts and Germans all shared a similar proto-democratic, tribal organization going back to a common Indo-European social order. In the course of its civilizational history, Western democracy has been transformed from direct […]

Signs of the Times, Part I: Postmodern Moral Panics and the Manufacture of Virtue

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It has been suggested that we live in an era of postmodern moral panics — bouts of moral horror directed, inter alia, at contraventions of elite values related to race, racism, and ethnic and gender identity politics. Kenneth Thompson has pointed out the “increasing rapidity in the succession of moral panics” and “the all-pervasive quality of panics that […]