Further to my comment about Trump's back and forth about the Chagos deal, there have been reports in various papers that his latest condemnation of it was because Starmer refused permission for the US to launch an attack on Iran from Diego Garcia.
And today, there are reports in the Times about Politico reporting that both BoJo and Liz Truss have been lobbying Trump against the Chagos deal very recently.
O brave new world, that has such leaders (and past leaders) in't.
Where all of this will fail across the US, is on "You let me cheat on my taxes by $10M every year, and you're going to draw a line at sex with 17-year-old?" That this will be largely successful is very depressing to me, even before we get to my granddaughters.
I recently rode in a Tesla in self-driving mode. Impressive but somewhat anticlimactic, having seen several self-driving videos. It would have been more impressive if there had been no one in the driver's seat.
now Stinky says he’s going to do a 10% global tariff.
But no more, anywhere? Last month BYD filed suit at the US Court of International Trade challenging much higher tariffs than that on their EVs. If the tariff on compact EVs is reduced to 10%, they'll be opening dealerships tomorrow and dominating EV sales by next year. I claim there is an enormous unmet demand for well-built compact EVs priced at $20k, and BYD can meet it.
I've already received a benefit from the Court's ruling on Trump's tariffs. On PredictIt, I bet the Court would overturn the tariffs. I've received a 20% return on my investment. :)
novakant, I'm also very sympathetic to what you say. And for clarity's sake, although I often examine this kind of stuff for its effect on women, it is very clear that the kinds of men who can get away with it also take sexual advantage of any group that suits their taste, including children, boys and other men.
But the question of whether to judge such behaviour by today's standards, or the standards of another time, is a different and difficult one. It may, for example, have been acceptable/legal until recently to rape your wife, but if she was trying to resist and in distress that still entails a kind of lack of empathy for the suffering of a fellow human that makes it possible to judge the perpetrator harshly.
And as for whether one can or should enjoy or appreciate the intellectual or artistic work of a moral degenerate, we have discussed that on ObWi many times. There is no easy answer. And whether the French (or any other) intellectual culture makes such behaviour more likely, or more tolerated, this is above my pay grade. It is noticeable, however, that more prominent women in France have found fault with the MeToo movement than those in other countries, so that's a clue. And Macron continuing to staunchly defend Gerard Depardieu in the face of countless allegations is another one. It doesn't stop Depardieu being (or having been) a great actor, however.
A sane decision of any significance by this SCOTUS usually means that something really awful is just around the corner.
Remember, they have things like birthright citizenship on their to-do list.
OK, this is business-friendly and thus right in their lane but I would not be surprised at all, if this is not also rising the shields for some reactionary semisolid digestive final product already in the works.
Kassandra was an optimist with rose.colored glasses.
Turns out, multiple companies already have in progress law suits to require the government to refund the money collected from them by Trump's tariffs. I admit to mixed feelings on that. For me, it comes down to whether, and to what extent, they absorbed the added costs themselves, vs passing them thru to their customers.
If they held the line on prices, absorbing the tariffs by accepting lower profits? No problem at all with them recovering their loss. But if they passed all, or even part, of their tariff-induced cost? I'd have to see from them something on how they proposed to similarly pass along those refunds to those customers.
IANAL, but it looks like it could take multiple cases to establish an equitable answer.
Listening to the radio (old-timey FM), right after they announced the SCOTUS decision against tariffs, they moved to an audio clip of His Orangeness saying the US has pledged $10B to the Bored of Piece (of sh*t).
The radio announcer then said, "The president offered no details on how this would be... (noticeable pause) at all legal." I LOLed in my office at that one.
I'm sooo tempted to read this as some of the justices discovering at least a hint of a spine when it comes to Trump. Doesn't mean they won't continue to be reactionary as hell. But perhaps on stuff where the focus isn't ideology, but just Trumpic insanity...?
But realistically? I want to see several more examples before getting my hopes up.
They noted that before Trump, no president had ever used the statute in question “to impose any tariffs, let alone tariffs of this magnitude and scope.”
To justify the “extraordinary” tariff powers, Trump must “point to clear congressional authorization,” the court wrote. “He cannot.”
No arguments here, novakant. I struggle with the same questions about the institutions and culture. I'm struggling with those things on an ethical level at my own institution in this moment.
On the French front in particular, I've had a ringside seat while my graduate institution dealt with the passing of Derrida, and with the fallout from his having defended a friend and colleague of his for having coerced a grad student to sleep with him. Derrida (and his estate after his passing) threatened to move his archive elsewhere if his friend faced any discipline. I believe his friend ended up taking a position at another university. Meanwhile, his grad student left the program the year before I started my Ph.D.. I don't know if she continued her studies elsewhere or if she left as an ABD. The wrangling and fallout from all that were background noise as I settled into my graduate work. Most of the people I was in class with had known all the involved parties.
Not as problematic as Foucault - at least everyone involved was an adult - but part and parcel of the same culture, and I can't read Derrida without thinking about those things as well.
Foucault, for all his manifest monstrosity, made important contributions to philosophy.
Are we talking about the gay leather, hardcore S/M Foucault - which is fine by me as long as consenting adults are concerned. Or the Foucault who according to several accounts of the time had sexually abused children in Tunisia (in a not uncommon post-imperial twist)? Which is of course not.
I'm afraid your argument that his contributions to philosophy - which I do recognise - might somehow be used as a counterweight in the moral calculus is at the heart of the problem currently being unravelled in France:
E.g., a figure like Matzneff would openly write about his pedophilia and be published for decades by Gallimard, the most prestitigous publishing house in France, his career supported by major writers and intellectuals. In the middle of this clip he is shown sitting in Bernard Pivot's "Apostrophes" - the major intellectual talk show of the time - talking about illegal acts with children and hiding behind the "art excuse". Everyone laughs it off and the one brave writer who challenges him was later vilified in the press.
There are numerous other examples where pedophilia and sexual abuse has either been legitimized altogether - ranging from Sartre/Beavouir et. al. in 1977 to Finkielkraut just recently- or artistic and intellectual achievement has been used to excuse or cover it up, e.g. Polanski, Haenel/Ruggia, Depardieu, Doillon etc.
As you can see, I am quite into French intellectual and cultural output, in fact it is one of my passions - but I am increasingly questioning much of the culture and society that it rests upon. I realise that all of this is catnip to the right who wants to roll-back the achievements of '68 and of course hates people they consider deviant, but still we have to face up to some uncomfortable truths.
The title reference was to Crown Imperial, thought I'm happy to make the connection to nous' link.
A lot of interesting points. I had to check Foucault's dates, he died in 1984, and I wonder if one problem/challenge is that we often live in an eternal present, and we can pull people into that even though they have been long gone. There is the famous letter of Machiavelli where he says:
"When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold, I strip off my muddy, sweaty, everyday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them... there I am not ashamed to speak with them and ask them the reason for their actions; and they, in their humanity, reply to me."
When we can time travel like this, it is easier to subject everyone, living and dead, to our own moral codes.
Given the cross-section of my friends group, I would not be at all surprised if part of that Mr. and Mrs. Noah and Joan Ark crowd were selecting that answer just to be humorous, and to fuck with the results. It's a shovel-ready subject for meme aficionados.
novakant - As a sidenote: interesting and shocking what has been revealed in France since MeToo. The sense of entitlement and the sheer depravity of anyone from Foucault to Duhamel is just astounding.
Foucault is a tricky one for me. It's hard to see anything at all positive about a monster like Epstein. Foucault, for all his manifest monstrosity, made important contributions to philosophy. There's also the crucial difference between people weaponizing Foucault's monstrousness in order to further demonize the LGBTQ+ community, and the elite circling-of-wagons around Epstein to protect those already well insulated by their wealth, power, and privilege.
Foucault being decades dead also takes a lot of the urgency out of the conversation. He can't do any more damage than he already has.
And on a much lighter note, the post title immediately made me think of the Kuricorder Quartet's version of the Imperial March.
It's very good that this is happening. Also, what an illustration of how deeply unfortunate it is when stupidity, ignorance, and an entitled sense of impunity collide.
The King is saying and doing all the right things about it. But it is unsettling that the country is in a rather fragile and unstable state, with uncertainty about Keir and Labour, the Tories, and the malignant Farage waiting in the wings. On the whole, as far as one can tell over many years, Charles is a perfectly decent sort, and William seems to be OK too. But the Royal Family is not as popular as it was (understandably!), and in retrospect even the admired late Queen is responsible for some of this. What a mess.
As a sidenote: interesting and shocking what has been revealed in France since MeToo. The sense of entitlement and the sheer depravity of anyone from Foucault to Duhamel is just astounding.
In my experience, nothing that is coming out anywhere in the wake of MeToo is any surprise to a large proportion of women, particularly those who've had a life and are no longer young. I don't know how much you all saw about the Gisele Pelicot case, but her husband arranged to have her raped, unconscious, by over 70 men he'd recruited online over 10 years. Of the 51 men who were identified and charged, they ALL came from a 30 mile radius around the small Provencal town the Pelicots lived in. And they were from every walk of life: journalists, firefighters, nurses, delivery drivers, labourers etc etc. Eminent thinkers and other famous and powerful men, not to mention soi-disant enlightened, decent, liberal or progressive ones, are hardly exempt from the qualities which make this possible.
The "Andrew formerly known as Prince" will get a little accountability, but full accountability for the perverts that visited Epstein on his Kid Rock would require massive bloodshed, so unlikely.
It’s almost as if we are ruled by an at best amoral, unaccountable elite not governed by any law.
I really must take serious exception. Given the behavior on display, amoral seems like sane-washing. Immoral is what we've got here; there really isn't any reason to attempt to whitewash it.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Thread”
Further to my comment about Trump's back and forth about the Chagos deal, there have been reports in various papers that his latest condemnation of it was because Starmer refused permission for the US to launch an attack on Iran from Diego Garcia.
And today, there are reports in the Times about Politico reporting that both BoJo and Liz Truss have been lobbying Trump against the Chagos deal very recently.
O brave new world, that has such leaders (and past leaders) in't.
"
Yeah, kids of Tres. Sec Bessant have bought up lots of "tariff refund claims", for 20% of face value.
Corruption. MASSIVE corruption.
Of the kind that requires tumbril-rides to fix.
"
I've heard that some companies have already sold off the legal claims for tariff refunds. I'm waiting for the scam emails related to that.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
Where all of this will fail across the US, is on "You let me cheat on my taxes by $10M every year, and you're going to draw a line at sex with 17-year-old?" That this will be largely successful is very depressing to me, even before we get to my granddaughters.
On “Open Thread”
I recently rode in a Tesla in self-driving mode. Impressive but somewhat anticlimactic, having seen several self-driving videos. It would have been more impressive if there had been no one in the driver's seat.
"
now Stinky says he’s going to do a 10% global tariff.
But no more, anywhere? Last month BYD filed suit at the US Court of International Trade challenging much higher tariffs than that on their EVs. If the tariff on compact EVs is reduced to 10%, they'll be opening dealerships tomorrow and dominating EV sales by next year. I claim there is an enormous unmet demand for well-built compact EVs priced at $20k, and BYD can meet it.
"
now Stinky says he's going to do a 10% global tariff.
because he's a moron.
"
I've already received a benefit from the Court's ruling on Trump's tariffs. On PredictIt, I bet the Court would overturn the tariffs. I've received a 20% return on my investment. :)
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
novakant, I'm also very sympathetic to what you say. And for clarity's sake, although I often examine this kind of stuff for its effect on women, it is very clear that the kinds of men who can get away with it also take sexual advantage of any group that suits their taste, including children, boys and other men.
But the question of whether to judge such behaviour by today's standards, or the standards of another time, is a different and difficult one. It may, for example, have been acceptable/legal until recently to rape your wife, but if she was trying to resist and in distress that still entails a kind of lack of empathy for the suffering of a fellow human that makes it possible to judge the perpetrator harshly.
And as for whether one can or should enjoy or appreciate the intellectual or artistic work of a moral degenerate, we have discussed that on ObWi many times. There is no easy answer. And whether the French (or any other) intellectual culture makes such behaviour more likely, or more tolerated, this is above my pay grade. It is noticeable, however, that more prominent women in France have found fault with the MeToo movement than those in other countries, so that's a clue. And Macron continuing to staunchly defend Gerard Depardieu in the face of countless allegations is another one. It doesn't stop Depardieu being (or having been) a great actor, however.
On “Open Thread”
Veering off in a different direction, here's the title of today's Economist podcast:
And the Arrest is History: Andrew Mountbatten Windsor
The Economist does manage some nice turns of phrase.
"
A sane decision of any significance by this SCOTUS usually means that something really awful is just around the corner.
Remember, they have things like birthright citizenship on their to-do list.
OK, this is business-friendly and thus right in their lane but I would not be surprised at all, if this is not also rising the shields for some reactionary semisolid digestive final product already in the works.
Kassandra was an optimist with rose.colored glasses.
"
Turns out, multiple companies already have in progress law suits to require the government to refund the money collected from them by Trump's tariffs. I admit to mixed feelings on that. For me, it comes down to whether, and to what extent, they absorbed the added costs themselves, vs passing them thru to their customers.
If they held the line on prices, absorbing the tariffs by accepting lower profits? No problem at all with them recovering their loss. But if they passed all, or even part, of their tariff-induced cost? I'd have to see from them something on how they proposed to similarly pass along those refunds to those customers.
IANAL, but it looks like it could take multiple cases to establish an equitable answer.
"
Listening to the radio (old-timey FM), right after they announced the SCOTUS decision against tariffs, they moved to an audio clip of His Orangeness saying the US has pledged $10B to the Bored of Piece (of sh*t).
The radio announcer then said, "The president offered no details on how this would be... (noticeable pause) at all legal." I LOLed in my office at that one.
F**king clown show.
"
I'm sooo tempted to read this as some of the justices discovering at least a hint of a spine when it comes to Trump. Doesn't mean they won't continue to be reactionary as hell. But perhaps on stuff where the focus isn't ideology, but just Trumpic insanity...?
But realistically? I want to see several more examples before getting my hopes up.
"
SCOTUS knocks down Stinky's tariffs ?
there is some justice in the world ?
this is a freaky Friday.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
No arguments here, novakant. I struggle with the same questions about the institutions and culture. I'm struggling with those things on an ethical level at my own institution in this moment.
On the French front in particular, I've had a ringside seat while my graduate institution dealt with the passing of Derrida, and with the fallout from his having defended a friend and colleague of his for having coerced a grad student to sleep with him. Derrida (and his estate after his passing) threatened to move his archive elsewhere if his friend faced any discipline. I believe his friend ended up taking a position at another university. Meanwhile, his grad student left the program the year before I started my Ph.D.. I don't know if she continued her studies elsewhere or if she left as an ABD. The wrangling and fallout from all that were background noise as I settled into my graduate work. Most of the people I was in class with had known all the involved parties.
Not as problematic as Foucault - at least everyone involved was an adult - but part and parcel of the same culture, and I can't read Derrida without thinking about those things as well.
"
Now that Foucault is known to be bad, do we have to take down all his pendulums?1??
"
Foucault, for all his manifest monstrosity, made important contributions to philosophy.
Are we talking about the gay leather, hardcore S/M Foucault - which is fine by me as long as consenting adults are concerned. Or the Foucault who according to several accounts of the time had sexually abused children in Tunisia (in a not uncommon post-imperial twist)? Which is of course not.
I'm afraid your argument that his contributions to philosophy - which I do recognise - might somehow be used as a counterweight in the moral calculus is at the heart of the problem currently being unravelled in France:
E.g., a figure like Matzneff would openly write about his pedophilia and be published for decades by Gallimard, the most prestitigous publishing house in France, his career supported by major writers and intellectuals. In the middle of this clip he is shown sitting in Bernard Pivot's "Apostrophes" - the major intellectual talk show of the time - talking about illegal acts with children and hiding behind the "art excuse". Everyone laughs it off and the one brave writer who challenges him was later vilified in the press.
There are numerous other examples where pedophilia and sexual abuse has either been legitimized altogether - ranging from Sartre/Beavouir et. al. in 1977 to Finkielkraut just recently- or artistic and intellectual achievement has been used to excuse or cover it up, e.g. Polanski, Haenel/Ruggia, Depardieu, Doillon etc.
As you can see, I am quite into French intellectual and cultural output, in fact it is one of my passions - but I am increasingly questioning much of the culture and society that it rests upon. I realise that all of this is catnip to the right who wants to roll-back the achievements of '68 and of course hates people they consider deviant, but still we have to face up to some uncomfortable truths.
"
The title reference was to Crown Imperial, thought I'm happy to make the connection to nous' link.
A lot of interesting points. I had to check Foucault's dates, he died in 1984, and I wonder if one problem/challenge is that we often live in an eternal present, and we can pull people into that even though they have been long gone. There is the famous letter of Machiavelli where he says:
"When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold, I strip off my muddy, sweaty, everyday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them... there I am not ashamed to speak with them and ask them the reason for their actions; and they, in their humanity, reply to me."
When we can time travel like this, it is easier to subject everyone, living and dead, to our own moral codes.
On “Take your’n and beat his’n”
Given the cross-section of my friends group, I would not be at all surprised if part of that Mr. and Mrs. Noah and Joan Ark crowd were selecting that answer just to be humorous, and to fuck with the results. It's a shovel-ready subject for meme aficionados.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
novakant - As a sidenote: interesting and shocking what has been revealed in France since MeToo. The sense of entitlement and the sheer depravity of anyone from Foucault to Duhamel is just astounding.
Foucault is a tricky one for me. It's hard to see anything at all positive about a monster like Epstein. Foucault, for all his manifest monstrosity, made important contributions to philosophy. There's also the crucial difference between people weaponizing Foucault's monstrousness in order to further demonize the LGBTQ+ community, and the elite circling-of-wagons around Epstein to protect those already well insulated by their wealth, power, and privilege.
Foucault being decades dead also takes a lot of the urgency out of the conversation. He can't do any more damage than he already has.
And on a much lighter note, the post title immediately made me think of the Kuricorder Quartet's version of the Imperial March.
On “Open Thread”
Robert Reich's open letter to Kristi Noem in today's Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/19/kristi-noem-ice-google-meta
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
It's very good that this is happening. Also, what an illustration of how deeply unfortunate it is when stupidity, ignorance, and an entitled sense of impunity collide.
The King is saying and doing all the right things about it. But it is unsettling that the country is in a rather fragile and unstable state, with uncertainty about Keir and Labour, the Tories, and the malignant Farage waiting in the wings. On the whole, as far as one can tell over many years, Charles is a perfectly decent sort, and William seems to be OK too. But the Royal Family is not as popular as it was (understandably!), and in retrospect even the admired late Queen is responsible for some of this. What a mess.
As a sidenote: interesting and shocking what has been revealed in France since MeToo. The sense of entitlement and the sheer depravity of anyone from Foucault to Duhamel is just astounding.
In my experience, nothing that is coming out anywhere in the wake of MeToo is any surprise to a large proportion of women, particularly those who've had a life and are no longer young. I don't know how much you all saw about the Gisele Pelicot case, but her husband arranged to have her raped, unconscious, by over 70 men he'd recruited online over 10 years. Of the 51 men who were identified and charged, they ALL came from a 30 mile radius around the small Provencal town the Pelicots lived in. And they were from every walk of life: journalists, firefighters, nurses, delivery drivers, labourers etc etc. Eminent thinkers and other famous and powerful men, not to mention soi-disant enlightened, decent, liberal or progressive ones, are hardly exempt from the qualities which make this possible.
"
The "Andrew formerly known as Prince" will get a little accountability, but full accountability for the perverts that visited Epstein on his Kid Rock would require massive bloodshed, so unlikely.
Could be wrong!
"
I really must take serious exception. Given the behavior on display, amoral seems like sane-washing. Immoral is what we've got here; there really isn't any reason to attempt to whitewash it.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.