Troubled Water

St. Ann’s, April 25th 1816  Sir – I have the honour to report to your Excellency that about two o’Clock in the morning of the 15th instant, I received an official notification of an insurrection of the Negroes in the interior of the island on the preceding evening and I was required by the President to co-operate with the militia.  About 10 o’Clock, having waited in vain for authentic information of the strength and position of the insurgents, I deemed it necessary to march off in that quarter of the country, when the alarm had first spread, with a force consisting of three field pieces under the command of Brevil Major Brough: 200 men of the 4th Battalion 60th Regiment under the command of Lt. Colonel Lomax, 200 men of the 15th Regiment under the command of Lt. Colonel Davidson, and the left wing of the West India Regiment (late the Bourbons) to which I attached their late officers, under the command of Major Cassidy, accompanied by a detachment of the royal regiment of St M...

Señor Usted me pide un Reglamento, que rija la 1era Escuela: le daré mis ideas, para que las combine con las suyas, i lo forme. No tenga Usted imprimir mi manuscrito, ni lo muestre, sino a personas de talento e instrucción. Si los tontos lo ven impreso, tendrán que reír pa muchos días, i si usted les da lectura, pensarán que los consulta, los MÁS, dormirán en lugar de OÍR. Si usted desea…como lo creo…que mi trabajo y los gastos no se pierdan, emprenda su Escuela con INDIOS!!! Bien merecen los DUEÑOS DEL PAÍS –los que mantienen el Gobierno i la Iglesia con su DINERO, i a los Particulares con SU TRABAJO, que enseñen a sus hijos a Hablar, a Escribir, a llevar las cuentas, y a tratar con DECENCIA…aunque no sea más que para que sirvan bien a sus AMOS, que la Divina Providencia les ha dado, con encargo de mostrarles el Camino del Cielo de BLANQUITOS!, poco o nada podrá usted esperar. Para RETOZAR, en las CALLES, les falta tiempo: i los padres ven la Escuela, como un corral, donde meten a los...

[...] Alguna vez nos deja pensativos la sensación “de haber vivido ya ese momento”. Los partidarios del eterno retorno nos juran que así es e indagan una corroboración de su fe en esos perplejos estados. Olvidan que el recuerdo importaría una novedad que es la negación de la tesis y que el tiempo lo iría perfeccionando — hasta el ciclo distante en que el individuo ya prevé su destino y prefiere obrar de otro modo... Nietzsche, por lo demás, no habló nunca de una confirmación mnemónica del Regreso*. Tampoco habló — y eso merece destacarse también — de la finitud de los átomos. Nietzsche niega los átomos; la atomística no le parecía otra cosa que un modelo del mundo, hecho exclusivamente para los ojos y el entendimiento aritmético... Para fundar su tesis, habló de una fuerza limitada, desenvolviéndose en el tiempo infinito, pero incapaz de un número ilimitado de variaciones. Obró no sin perfidia: primero nos precave contra la idea de una fuerza infinita —“¡cuidemos de tales orgías del pe...

«A leitura da poesia de Mallarmé, como ouro simbólico e como alegoria, não é a única maneira de perceber nela “o desaparecimento elocutório do poeta” o qual não tem como condição a alienação à potência do Espírito inscrita na matéria verbal, mas pode ser mais poeticamente um exercício de invenção de formas sintácticas que esquecem aquelas pelas quais automaticamente o si se coloca a partir da identidade que lhe é atribuída. Se se fizer corresponder esse “desaparecimento” ao preenchimento reivindicado do lugar de poeta da tribo, ele corresponderá a um máximo de identidade no anonimato, a do lugar de onde brota a identidade final do humano. Mas se a subtracção à decifração for entendida como desfazer da matriz sintáctica e invenção de outra linguagem, ela não pode ser suposta destinar-se aos outros como um produto de adoração, mas apenas como apelo à decifração, ao pensamento, em que o que conta não é quem apela, mas os intervalos que esse apelo inscreve no mundo. Em relação a Artaud ref...

Reading Neoliberalism from the angle of Intellectual History allows us to understand the initial scope of its epistemic and political ambitions. As early as the 1940s, Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek had questioned the notion that social sciences should emulate the paradigm of Physics, calling for a more sophisticated understanding of the role of theory, along with a more rigorous assessment of causality. Likewise, they considered the idea that history unfolded through a predictable succession of stages, according to ‘Historical Laws’, to be a crude simplification and a denial of human freedom. The importance they attributed to historical interpretation concerned both the political legitimacy of the competitive market order and the possibility of understanding the evolution of society in the course of time.  These insights were reflected in the Mont Pèlerin Society’s statement of aims, which directly identified the interpretation of History as a matter of concern for all of those...

By anarchism, I understand a new social order, where no group of people shall be governed by another group of people. Individual freedom shall prevail in the full sense of the word. Private ownership shall be abolished. Every person shall have an equal opportunity to develop himself well, both mentally and physically. We shall not have to struggle for our daily existence as we do now. No one shall live on the product of others. Every person shall produce as much as he can, and enjoy as much as he needs — receive according to his need. Instead of striving to get money, we shall strive towards education, towards knowledge. While at present the people of the world are divided into various groups, calling themselves nations, while one nation defies another — in most cases considers the others as competitive — we, the workers of the world, shall stretch out our hands towards each other with brotherly love. To the fulfillment of this idea I shall devote all my energy, and, if necessary, rend...

Augustus Leopold Egg – Past and Present (Nº2 - Prayer), 1858 [...] By writing only about Oxbridge, writers like Frances Marshall reinforced their own membership in a class structure that was striving to exclude women and other “undesirables.” Critic Janice Rossen claims this is a basic tenet in all Oxbridge fiction: in reflecting a high value for Oxbridge, modern fiction writers affirm the fact of social history holding Oxford and Cambridge universities to be preeminent in prestige. And this struck at the root of what fiction is and why we read it. these writers either wish to identify with Oxbridge themselves, and thus to appropriate its manna by boasting of their insiders’ knowledge, or they assume that their readers will wish to do so vicariously through their novels. But if it is true that all Oxbridge novels represent the writer’s and reader’s desire to be part of an exclusive and prestigious institution and, by association, the class position that goes along with it, how did wom...

« As Tom ’s place, an’ please your honour, was easy—and the weather warm—it put him upon thinking seriously of settling himself in the world; and as it fell out about that time, that a Jew who kept a sausage shop in the same street, had the ill luck to die of a strangury, and leave his widow in possession of a rousing trade—— Tom thought (as every body in Lisbon was doing the best he could devise for himself) there could be no harm in offering her his service to carry it on: so without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a pound of sausages at her shop— Tom set out—counting the matter thus within himself, as he walk’d along; that let the worst come of it that could, he should at least get a pound of sausages for their worth—but, if things went well, he should be set up; inasmuch as he should get not only a pound of sausages—but a wife and—a sausage shop, an’ please your honour, into the bargain. Every servant in the family, from high to low, wish’d Tom success; an...

Hey, buffoon! Cling tightly! Beware falling apart! Beware and be alert! Bend your ears to every sign of movement Keep watch on your own shadow and, when the leaves rustle, Shut yourself off and keep still! Life is so dangerous, buffoon. Open fire! Bullets aimed at everything every word uttered every breeze passing without your permission My lord buffoon. Instruct the sparrows, the village lanterns, the towns' windows, every whispering blade of grass to report to you. As police, let the ants infiltrate and build the security state Ask the raindrops to write their reports, Buffoon... The trees have passed Like imaginary dreams Nice and gentle people Through shades and clouds The trees have passed Where are you my dears? It’s a painful scene for me Where are you going? Mary I will miss you I am shedding tears Yet we are citizens by our marks In drawing we are neighbors The trees have passed To land like a turban, On the shoulder of the homeland. With each coup in a dark abyss we plung...

«The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly t o rewrite its own history . On the receiving end you get not only one lie — a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days — but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.» «Totalitarianism begins in contempt for what you have. The second step is the notion: “Things mu...