Kester Brewin

A little dated now, but still a great video from Knife Party, with polemic text by Barry Mcnamara, outlining one perspective on American militarism. With Gordon Brown giving evidence at the Iraq inquiry today, it seemed resonant, especially the astonishing statistic that the US has been at war with someone around the world at all [...]

Thanks for the comments on the post about happiness the other day. I’ve been mulling over the idea of happiness, and why we are perhaps the most unhappy society ever, and linking it to a new direction my thinking seems to be being drawn in.
As I’ve written before, I’m really interested in the charred remains [...]

Occasionally two things from the news catch your ear and resonate together. Today it was the news that Obama has cancelled Nasa’s new moon programme. And [ht Barry Taylor] that Gil Scott-Heron is back with a new album.
The connection? I’ve always loved Scott-Heron’s early, hard-hitting social commentaries. And the lyrics of ‘Whitey on the Moon’ [...]

Last year was about writing the book, due out in June. There’ll be more of that here in good time. But I think it’s clearer now what this year’s focus could be.
From some of the embers of Vaux a few of us began Apple, a series of conversations around ideas of technology and theology. We [...]

In the previous post I tried to explore how Christian community could move away from the sociopathic tendencies it naturally develops in worship of an omnipotent God by a passive congregation directed through a ‘hero’ priest.
In doing so I proposed that what we find in the radical Marxist view of Christianity is a community gathered [...]

In the previous two posts { [ 1 ] [ 2 ] } I’ve been wondering whether a certain symmetry of relationship is needed if empathy is going to flow between two people. The springboard for this was Zizek critiquing the adage ‘an enemy is a friend whose story I have not yet heard’ by [...]

I’m currently enjoying one of Zizek’s new books, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce – an allusion to Marx’s introduction to his Eighteenth Brumaire in which he wrote:
“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great events and characters of world history occur, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second [...]

Tomorrow (10th) is ‘International Human Rights Day,’ commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN. Article 1 famously reads:
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
Incarnation is about [...]

Remember, remember the 5th of November, the gun powder treason and plot.
I know of no reason why the gun powder treason should ever be forgot.
As we gaze into the sky and cry ‘ooo’ and ‘ahhh’ tonight, and see the flickering shadows and cinders as the pyre burns and the guy turns to ash, I wonder [...]

Very interesting conversation last night between Steven Johnson – author of brilliant books such as The Ghost Map, Emergence (for which I owe him a huge debt) and The Invention of Air – and Brian Eno – who defies description or categorization.
They covered a lot of ground over the evening, but perhaps the best line [...]