The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Nothing Will Come Of Nothing. Actually, it’s worse than that. Aurelien Towards the end of the 1970s, there was a movement in Britain called Punk, mostly expressed in music, but in some other forms of art as well. I never much cared for it, although it’s true that it was a useful corrective to the inane pomposities of Progressive Rock music earlier in the decade. But most commentators at the time correctly recognised that the quality of the music—often indifferent, at best—was less important than the power and authenticity of the anger and frustration that it articulated. Yet it must be hard today to understand where these emotions were coming from, in a society where unemployment, in modern terms, scarcely existed, where public services generally worked and where the country was still a major industrial power. Yet even before the reign of Thatcher began, the mood was one of sour anger and frustration. People demonstrated for the Right to Work, and Punk itself was often described ...

  Gender Nihilism and the Revolutionary Impulse Why the breakdown of meaning and an embodied identity fuels extremist violence. About the Author Brooke Laufer, Psy.D. is an independent scholar, writer, and clinician with a group practice in Evanston, Illinois. She works from a Jungian orientation and applies depth psychological perspectives to contemporary sociopolitical issues. The nature of political violence has changed. What once looked like moral struggle—however misguided—has increasingly given way to something more chaotic and disturbing. Among many young adults, a powerful “revolutionary impulse” has taken hold: not just the urge to protest, but the belief that one is personally called to carry out sweeping, often violent acts in the name of social change. In a growing number of cases, individuals drawn toward extremist violence also identify as transgender. This is a pattern that warrants careful examination rather than reflexive dismissal. To be clear, identifying as tran...