Isaiah Berlin claimed that exciting utopian ideas can be dangerous to liberal democracy. Michael Walzer argues that dullness has its perils, too...
Pluralism is only possible when we can agree how to disagree. But that deeper agreement shows that Berlin was a monist despite himself. A response to Isaiah Berlin and Michael Walzer.
Silvio Berlusconi isn't an ideal leader. In fact, he's a crook. But sometimes, the crook is still the best option...
Constantly bombarded by advertising, we have become a lost generation. It is time to let go and start dreaming.
The Utopian in dialogue with Gary Sick, former member of the US National Security Council; Richard Bulliet, Professor of History at Columbia University; and Dr. Eden Naby, Iranian dissident and commentator.
"Sharia is little threat to UK law."
An inside look at Sharia courts in England.
'The recent rise of right-wing populism in Italy has been frightening. Counterintuitively, only the Italian left can stop it.'
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Knowing what (not) to be afraid of.
On the limits of political alchemy from Thucydides to Bush.
Oliver Griffin demonstrates how the world we live in is reappropriated through activity, challenging our often disquieting perceptions of urban space.
'It's not at all a foregone conclusion which party - I or the Church - can invoke the right moral intuitions.' (Habermas)
An exchange between Jurgen Habermas & Paolo Flores d'Arcais
'I know the people who are killing innocents, they are the men and women of my beloved country. I urge you to stop us.'
'I have a confession to make. I am an historian. I am useless. I am glad. This is the way it is meant to be.'
'You're no doubt wondering, Commissioner, why I would take such an interest in the honor and security of our country.' A short story.
A sky signed with honour: remembering Antoine de Saint-Exupery in life, literature and flight.
Our place in time, the base of recorded culture - and the unwinding of the complex. An art project.
An interview with Giuliano Amato, Italy's two-time Prime Minister.
Provocative portraits of innocents: Paul Sutton examine's Bernard Faucon's dreams of fantastical youth.
Blandscapes in the Dutch built environment - Justin Fowler remarks on the dystopia of architectural competence.
With chaos and catastrophe in mind, Bobby Dowler's recent works explore the space between Thomas More's 'Noplacia' and 'Goplacia'
A rhapsody in 'b' for bourgeois...
(Translated from the German by Yascha Mounk. For the original please see here)
Ringworm, music lessons, VD, confirmation class .... spirit of the 60s?
Why Italy's left is to blame for the rise of the far right...
From the vantage point of the early 21st century the American left seems like a hopeless, hapless, very probably lost cause. Is it time for a new 'New Politics'?
'68 and the End of the High Modernist Ethic in Architecture
Avant-garde architecture was one of the unlikely victims of student sloganeers in May '68. 40 years later, young architects approach the lingering images of utopia with an almost fearful fascination as they seek to wed their own masturbatory exercises to something resembling social consciousness.
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'Destroy my ugly system face so that I don't see my own darkness anymore when facing myself in the morning, in the afternoon, in the night.'
System Being Manifesto, Island Utopia
