Archive (Page 2) • Open Mode • Buttondown

ranting about how shit's fucked, Brecht and big feelings, plus some recs and self promotion

June 14, 2025

hey everyone, I hope you’re maintaining in the dumpster fire. Feels like shit’s real fucked right now. I’m finding it hard to keep that thought in my head...

last night a DJ held my hand

May 23, 2025

Weird one this time, probly stupid, I dunno, sorry gang. (The Sorry Gang is the name of my crew. It’s a crew of one. Just me, wandering round the bar...

ranting about how paperwork is a labor of barbarism and whatnot

May 7, 2025

I have to get to a work thing soon but had a half thought or two that I want to plant and water, here goes. Antonio Negri somewhere says something to the...

from the cutting room - ranting about Iowa stuff

April 25, 2025

hey all,I assume none of you live in Iowa and fair enough (“can you call this living really?”) so this might not be of any interest, and again, fair enough!...

Quick note (I mean it for once) on two things I wrote

April 5, 2025

Hi everyone,I figure if you follow my little blog/newsletter thing that’s because you’re interested in or at least willing to tolerate the mention of things...

half-baked analogizing about opposition to the Iraq War and thinking about covid politics

March 21, 2025

It does what it say on the tin! I read another paper by the international law scholar and Marxist theorist Robert Knox and wanted to jot down some thoughts....

quick (?) note on the f word

March 17, 2025

Since 2016 or so I’ve repeatedly been struck by usages of the term fascism to characterize the Trump administration. This may be me equivocating or being...

And now for something completely different...

March 15, 2025

One way to describe my little blog is that it’s basically me going ‘hey taste this, it’s terrible’ and once in a while going ‘no for real this one’s...

notes toward grasping the politics of state responses to social murder

March 11, 2025

I’m in a bit of a rush so going to try to go fast here here. Two books I’m a huge fan of: Tony Smith’s Beyond Liberal Egalitarianism and Jack Copley’s...

Quick (?) note on social murder as stigma-generating

March 4, 2025

I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned this on here before or not, I have an article where I very briefly lay out my understanding of disability as social/as...

situating the actions of the ghouls in relation to the operation of the death machine

March 2, 2025

Ey up me duck, (sorry, been watching lots of dark and gritty cop shows set in the dark and gritty north of England - it’s basically the midwest with less...

Note on Raymond Williams's cultural typology, the working class and its representation

March 1, 2025

It’s my custom to begin a post with a bunch of throat clearing and jokes and stupid shit like that but this time to keep things fresh I thought I’d jump...

Can the concept of capital fit in their overalls? Practical consciousness and different kinds of liberal egalitarians

January 26, 2025

Okay well none of us expected me to be back again so soon but here I am again darkening your screen, because apparently the Mode is Open temporally too (what...

shameless self-promotion: Lochner edition

January 25, 2025

hi all,I hope you’re all doing as well as can be - getting some amount of enrichment activities, glimpsing just enough of the world outside the enclosure to...

It's the stupidity, stupid! (The economy does in fact suck.)

January 3, 2025

Hello friends,I feel like we haven’t corresponded since last y- [my children rush into the room, wrestle the keyboard from me, pin me to the floor and make...

Structural stupidity

December 15, 2024

Hey there Open Moders, (Open Moders is the nickname I have for you, my many fans, like how Mickey Mouse’s fans are call Mouseketeers, and Elon Musk’s fans...

A mosaic of sorts - liberal egalitarianism, politics of association, etc

December 1, 2024

As ever I know I’ve said some of this before, ah well. (And you know it too, since obviously real readers of Open Mode make sure to read every word in every...

Not Economically Viable

November 19, 2024

hey friends,Sorry for the relative radio silence. I’ve got several posts started for this lil blog o’mine but I’m lazy, busy, and tapped out so I don’t...

"Come up screaming...!" (one to fast forward thru tbth)

October 20, 2024

I got most of the way through writing this and almost deleted it - what's the point really, eh? And what am I even doing here? You're guess is as good as...

The state sides with the virus

October 16, 2024

Social murder and the state on my mind again today. I was in a conversation with some coworkers and stuff related to this came up and I had a thought that I...