Jul 03, 2025
Seeking recs for 21st century economic/social/philosophical works that try to answer a new problem, or an old one in a new way. On my list: Capitalist Realism, Baudrillard (older but relevant), The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, N.S. Lyons' stuff. Not looking for: popular/introductory works, uncritically one-sided political views, Zizek, anything associated with "irony", Timesslop/Atlanticslop, one of those analyzing-how-the-woke-left-appeared-and-disappeared histories, or anything that flatters the reader. Doomsaying is ok if it's researched.
anaca10 months ago
Zigmunt Bauman (What does happen when the world is finally "liquid", aka done globalising ? What are the consequences of the absence of the outside of a market ? What are we to do with garbage (human or not), now that we can't dump it outside?). Byung-Chul Han (Everyone is making themselves "transparent", consumable, market-ready. What kind of human does that make?) .
aenesidemus10 months ago
Will add.... I saw someone else's review of Han and worried he's the type of author who discovers a particular problem & then overestimates its predictive power / uses it to account for all sorts of other problems that it doesn't really interact with. I see amf saying Bauman as well & makes me think of Kant.
His books are short enough (maybe 120 pages each?): he doesn't milk it, but what he calls "transparency" is massive; it's in line with the Frankfurt school (Adorno, Benjamin, Lukacs, and then Habermas, Honneth): what does the industrial capitalistic system do to society, humanity and its psyche, thoughts, dreams etc.? He just sums it up under the notion of transparency and explore contemporary answers to the question. Han is the best of current continental philosophy imo. That said, it's a thought process extremely reliant on language (and its defects): to me it's close to poetry, and I think that's what philosophy should be, but I know not everyone might agree.
aenesidemus10 months ago
Sort of necessary for me to read the Frankfurt school anyway, so not that out-of-the-way for me. Thanks!
amf10 months ago
So a number of these aren't from the 21st but from the late 20th Century, but are prescient enough of 21st Century trends that I would consider them valuable, and some aren't strictly "philosophy" (but then again I would say Baudrillard isn't either), and (based on that list) seem like they'd be in your wheelhouse: Zygmunt Bauman -- Liquid Modernity Hans-Georg Moeller -- You and Your Profile Quinn Slobodian -- Crack-Up Capitalism Thomas Ligotti -- The Conspiracy Against the Human Race Edward Soja -- Postmetropolis Richard Sennett -- The Corrosion of Character (to bum you out) and The Craftsman (to give you hope)
aenesidemus10 months ago
Fun!! yeah idc if it's strictly Twenty First Century or Philosophy; only if they're interesting.
katjie10 months ago
Haven’t read him myself, but you may find Ivan Illich interesting
20th centruy but still relevant: Lasch, Debord. 21st centruy: Varoufakis
aenesidemus11 months ago
Debord's been on the list, I plan reading it when I tackle Marcuse and McLuhan. What from Lasch and Varoufakis?
From Lasch - The culture of narcissism. It's about how late stage, bureaucratic capitalism socialises people differently to the point of changing the dominant personality structure of individuals, therapy culture, cult of experts, etc. It holds up i credibily well for how old it is. From Varoufakis - Technofeudalism. Deals with contemporary techno-lizards
No Future by Lee Edelman talks about a death drive within the LGBT movement. Normal politics is invested in the future and the child, and as gay people are obviously outside of this consideration, Edelman says queer politics shouldn't try to twist itself into this mould and rather stay on the outside and refuse and protest and disrupt. He presents LGBT stuff as a societal death drive in this way. He's weirdly proud of it too. I disagree with the book but it's interesting anyway. Also Persuasion and Rhetoric by Carlo Michelstaedter. I haven't read this one so I can't confidently tell you what it's about. I have just heard it is good and it's on my personal tbr. Also just realised you asked for 21st century so ignore this one lol.
aenesidemus11 months ago
That style of academia is hard for me even to imagine being interesting... it's like oohhh you're writing "queer theory"... but you also know Lacan.....and you found out [normal healthy societal belief]... is actually bad?!?!?! and you can support this interpretation of a complex social phenomenon with evidence from.... 4-6 works of fiction? It's also weirdly homogenizing, now every gay in society has to be a manifestation of "the queer" and every child a manifestation of "the child"... and they're like "ontologically opposed".... Like tbh I sort of care about the future even though I'm not making children. There's no point in disrupting for the sake of disruption. Also he's ugly and ugly gays are always the stupidest writers. Why do I care if some ugly gay somewhere hates children and is trying to make everyone else hate them as well.... if you say it's interesting maybe so but I don't have much patience for psychoanalysis-by-numbers. Persuasion and Rhetoric looks fun. Might be a while before I get around to it.
On Deep History and The Brain by Daniel Lord Smail is quite niche but was mindblowing for me
I approach evolutionary psychology with mild skepticism...I'll see if it's good, thanks!