This essay, on the lessons of Milton for the politics of today, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 2 March 2025, under the headline “For a stagnating left mired in pessimism, Milton’s radical vision is poetry in motion”. “Is this pessimism?”, TJ Clark asks in his 2012 essay For a Left with No Future. “Well, yes.” How else, he wonders, “are we meant to understand the arrival of real ruin in the order of global finance… and the almost complete […]| Pandaemonium
I feel like I always start to get a little uneasy this time of year. Winter’s setting in, and I’m not really motivated to do anything. I have a few little things floating around, essays…| Death is a Whale
The Sunday Bulletin's editorial on Math 6, 1966 was carefully crafted. Headlined "The Winds of Doctrine," it introduced a ten-part series "The Left and The Right -- A View from Within." New to the Philadelphia paper, my first assignment was to "join" the antiwar movement as an "undercover" reporter, while…| Eugene L. Meyer