Philosophy, history and politics blog

  This is not so much a review of the above book, but rather about my general thoughts on Brexit and how it relates to Ireland. - It's clear that every country prefers to dwell on only the good things in its history, but it is fair to say that the particular English nationalism that is presently in control of the UK state, is truly exceptional in its desire to ignore so much of reality. It fixates on unrepresentative aspects in both its own history and that of its neighbours, while throwing in bits of conspiracy theorising about bendy bananas and the like to boot. This nationalism, in its very crudest versions, reduces history to the World War II years only, where England did indeed shine so well, but where by contrast, the continentals get all cast as either goose-stepping Nazis, or feeble cowards who surrendered because of a lack of grit. There are, however other years that have existed besides 1939 to 1945, and so a slightly more sophisticated version of this nationalism, will i...

This is a review of the above book, but it also expresses my thoughts on the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, and of Russia's general place in the world and where it needs to get to. - Russia as a people and nation deserve unconditional respect and esteem from the West, indeed as any country and people do, but also in particular for how Russia has contributed so much to the world, in basically all fields, but most famously in terms of literature, science, and aerospace engineering, with writers like Tolstoy, scientists such as Mendeleev, and great projects like the Soviet space programme.  In particular Russia is due all respect from the West for also having done the heavy lifting in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II and in this removing its wicked ascendancy from Europe. For the Soviet Union largely was the power that won the war in the European theatre, in that it was on the Eastern Front that the outcome of this war was decided, and this it is fair to say is not prope...