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Fragment on higher and lower communism
April 26, 2024
Someone wrote to me (no really!) asking about lower and higher phases of communism (‘higher and lower’ here meaning both the degree to which the exit from...
thinking about moral injury
April 17, 2024
I saw a tweet the other day that felt like a flash lighting up a lot of experiences I’d only seen the outlines of in the dark. It said “I was complaining to...
There’s social murder, but then there’s SOCIAL MURDER (a note on scale)
April 16, 2024
I’ve thought for a while now that social murder is an apt concept for understanding the covid pandemic. (I’m far from the only one to think that; the...
Tomorrow's future... today! ("The way-hey-ting is the hardest part." Or, "this crying, this screaming, [our] voice is being born")
April 7, 2024
I was talking with an old friend today who I hadn’t seen in ages, might be seriously eleven years. They happened to passing through town for work so we got...
book review for your consideration
April 2, 2024
Hello friends - I'm being uncharacteristically brief today, just passing along a link to something I think you should read: https://spectrejournal.com/on-...
connecting a few more dots (more notes on social murder and Williams)
March 25, 2024
I said in my last post that I might try to connect the new-to-me ideas from Raymond Williams that I’m excited about with the social murder analysis I’ve been...
Explaining the explanations (or, neither their crises nor their normality!)
March 23, 2024
I’ve often had a strong gut-level suspicion that the pandemic would have played out differently if we weren’t in the Trump years. What I don’t mean is that...
No such thing as long covid?! Well fu-uh-uck you, pal!
March 16, 2024
I got real mad about this earlier today and had trouble focusing on some other things I had to do. (“I get mad, I get mad, I get mad.”...
The hits don't start volume 3 (me in Bill of Health)
March 12, 2024
Me again - greatest hits collection installment three. Installment 1 is here https://buttondown.email/nateholdren/archive/the-hits-dont-start-volume-1-me-in-...
The hits don't start, volume 2 (me in Peste)
March 12, 2024
Hey again friends, the greatest hits collection continues. The last post is here: https://buttondown.email/nateholdren/archive/the-hits-dont-start-...
The hits don't start, volume 1 (me in LPE)
March 12, 2024
hey everyone, I’ve written, I don’t know, a medium-sized handful of pieces about aspects of the pandemic. One of the sites I wrote for is currently offline...
I don't want to donate but if I really have to...
March 9, 2024
Hello friends, enemies, and indifferent strangers, I hope you’re all keeping as well as the hellworld permits. I’m writing with a note just for my own sake....
Enforced meaninglessness plus more on the first New Left
February 24, 2024
I think I’ve mentioned before on here that I no longer want to say ‘manufacturing consent’ about the pandemic because ‘consent’ to me conjures up a content...
"where are the unions?"
February 13, 2024
I’ve repeatedly wondered and heard others wonder something along the lines of ‘where is the labor movement on covid?!’ I think this wondering is appropriate...
is fast car a concrete universal? is this affirming what should be negated?
February 5, 2024
Sometimes I think I should drink more or try weed or something because when I’m under the influence I can have a thought or feeling instead having my mental...
jungle can be pandemic art
January 30, 2024
I mentioned the other day that I’d read a little Raymond Williams and found the idea interesting that part of the time-and-placeness of a time and place is...
Nonmasking derives from context not beliefs (ps - Bartleby feelings)
January 26, 2024
I had masking, and mostly not masking, on my mind and thought I’d sit down to type about it because it was distracting me from some other tasks, and because...
update for accountability's sake
January 26, 2024
hey gang, I’m back to worsen your inboxes, sorry about that! Though, I mean, not to minimize how irritating I am but if this is the worst part of your week...
lil shorterish for once - is there any good pandemic art?
January 21, 2024
Hello again correspondents, Before I forget - the thought struck me that I could do a something like a letter to the editor kind of thing in this little...
no writing update - kitchen sink drama, sorry
January 14, 2024
Hello there good people, and the rest of you as well, I hope you’re all warm and well. Here in Des Moines we’re in an intense cold snap and snow fall. It’s...
writing update (no kitchen sink drama, sorry)
January 12, 2024
Hello again friends, comrades, and enemies, I hope you’re all weathering the world alright, not too hellworn. I’m alright. Honestly I’m very good personally...
thinking out loud about Simon Clarke and public health
December 27, 2023
Happy holidays all. I bet it'll be next year before we communicate again. I hope to remember to make a stupid 'wow a whole year ago' joke and more...
my talk from the capitalist state book event
December 17, 2023
Thank you to everyone who came to the book event today for the capitalist state book I have a chapter in. I thought all the presentations were great and the...
Bigger aspirations than system-compatible politics?
December 15, 2023
I assume everybody reading this thing already reads Abby Cartus’s newsletter. She’s got a great new post now about social murder and Søren Mau's book Mute...
one whole book
December 10, 2023
I hate to brag but I just finished a novel. Reading one I mean. That's right, one whole book. [Smirks, dusts hands] I read it sort of like chainsmoking in...
And so passed the time given to you (come here me speak!)
December 8, 2023
Hola, amigos, I know it's been a minute since I rapped at ya but I've been busy staring in horror, deleting work emails, and trying to remember how it felt...
Our deaths don't alarm them / rationality in bad contexts
November 30, 2023
Tonight I saw someone who works on climate policy say something like the following: ‘you’re painting a dire picture of where the environment is at and that’s...
Too big to fail, comrades but not peers, etc etc
November 23, 2023
I had a thought or three while washing dishes that I wanted to write down - or really, I glanced down at the dirt and caught a glimpse of what might be the...
Help, I watched some movies and felt some feelings!
November 18, 2023
Our dishwasher was always a bit shit and it’s been busted for ages. A combination of laziness, cheapness, and not wanting to fuck with having a new one...
RSV immunity debt's fake and misfortunes hunt in packs
November 18, 2023
A friend sent me this paper arguing that covid contributed to the big rise in RSV cases and hospitalizations last year (covid infections suppress the immune...
partial knowledges and the limited perception of social murder
November 16, 2023
Hi all, I hope you’re holding up alright. This newsletter/blog/thing’s been dormant lately. My energy’s been dissipated by work (I’m teaching three new...
favor request from people with library access
October 31, 2023
hi all, I hope you're keeping on keeping on despite [waves arms wildly] everything. I'm busy and tired from teaching and staring in horror and whatnot so...
"Industrial Medicine and the Work of Normalizing Violence"
October 21, 2023
Hey everybody. I hope you're all hanging in there. I had the thought tonight that this might interest some of you so I figure I'll pass it along in case so,...
Kettell and Kerr continued
October 17, 2023
I put up some notes on an article by Kettell and Kerr last time (https://buttondown.email/nateholdren/archive/depoliticization/). Here are the rest of my...
depoliticization
October 15, 2023
I’ve slowed down on my little blog because my semester’s gotten in full swing so I’ve less time and attention and am also just more tired, and nightmarish...
Brecht and some scraps
October 13, 2023
Hey everybody, I tried to write tonight and it felt more like an object lesson in inadequacy the more I typed so I decided abandon it and just send a link to...
a note on determinism and conflict
October 11, 2023
To a significant degree I think it was a foregone conclusion that covid and the social and political management of the pandemic was going to bring about lots...
something liberal egalitarians something something moral economies
October 5, 2023
By the way, I noticed the formatting was all fucked up in this post - https://buttondown.email/nateholdren/archive/facilitative-bloodlessnesslaundering-...
open marxism excerpts link
October 2, 2023
I’ve mentioned on here that I think the Open Marxism tradition has important insights on how to think about capitalist society, the capitalist state, and how...
thinking out loud at tedious length (naturally) about capitalism and crisis (again, still)
October 1, 2023
The pandemic isn't just a biological event, it's a political event, the social mediates the biological, as Abby put it someplace, it's a set of social...
'vulnerability is disqualifying'
September 30, 2023
For a while now I've been saying something like 'vulnerability is disqualifying' and while I still think it's a good shorthand, I wanted to think this...
Pyramids, dynamism, surplus population
September 28, 2023
The Industrial Workers of the World famously depicted capitalism as a pyramid (google “pyramid of capitalist society”) with the working class at the bottom....
Experts in the common good
September 27, 2023
Capitalism generates catastrophes and conflicts, and often those work to sustain rather than undermine the system. (Theodor Adorno says somewhere that...
Capitalism and Catastrophe/Emergency/Crisis
September 25, 2023
Covid’s a catastrophe and the policy response is a clusterfuck, one that serves as feedback loop through which catastrophe intensifies itself. Catastrophe...
two quick thoughts
September 23, 2023
Two quick (gotta stop saying that!) thoughts I wanted to capture on this fine fall-feeling saturday afternoon. One, Max Harris sent me a note (hi Max! and...
Facilitative bloodlessness/laundering violence
September 22, 2023
Some more covid zero zealot marxist (CZ2M) thoughts real quick (eh, I mean, I hope, I’m tryna get in a run by the river today, plus I got more email to...
Unpicking a mistake about social and moral imagination; notes toward a theory of covid minimizers as appallingly ordinary
September 22, 2023
Getting started on my covid zero zealot marxist agenda (CZ2M)... Throat cleared I hereby undertake a third beginning for this blog, this one intended as more...
The answer to the question no one has been asking - why "open mode"?
September 22, 2023
I thought I’d jot down some thoughts on why this thing’s called ‘open mode,’ if nothing else as a throat clearing exercise. First off, I miss blogging. I did...
why I set this up
September 14, 2023
I set this up because I want to think more in a general style of thinking that’s allowed to be open-ended and which is serious in the sense of highly...
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