Culture – Page 2 – Davood Gozli

The Burnout Society (Byung-Chul Han)

By Davood Gozli | 16/09/202229/05/2023 by Davood Gozli

I think it was sometime during the summer of 2018 that my friend Peter Limberg gave me a copy of the Agony of Eros. That was my introduction to Byung-Chul Han. Han is an aphoristic philosopher, carrying the influence of Nietzsche quite visibly. He engages with cultural and social topics in a way that is timely, counter-intuitive, counter-comfort, and counter-status quo. I’ve been considering a systematic–and somewhat exhaustive–review of his works published in English. This…

book review Culture Data Science

Review of ‘the Tyranny of Metrics’ by Jerry Z. Muller

By Davood Gozli | 20/07/202221/07/2022 by Davood Gozli

Among the books I have recently borrowed from the library, Jerry Muller’s (2018) book, the Tyranny of Metrics, has been the one I’d like to purchase a copy of and keep at hand for future reference. Muller is a historian who has written books on Adam Smith, various aspects of capitalism, and the history of conservative political thought. The initial seed for the Tyranny of Metrics, he writes in the introduction, was a series of…

Criticism Culture

Criticism, Philosophy, & Love: An Exchange with Javier Rivera

By Davood Gozli | 26/01/202203/02/2022 by Davood Gozli

My friend, Javier Rivera, has posted a video about the relationship between religion and philosophy. Specifically, he talks about the duty of philosophers to ask, “What is religion?” Javier points out the dominant tendency in philosophers to fixate on their own discipline, asking again and again, “What is philosophy?” but a similar kind of (philosophical) attention is rarely devoted to religion. What we need, Javier argues, is a philosophical interest and engagement with religion. Something…

book review Culture Philosophy Time

Oliver Burkeman on Time (“Four Thousand Weeks”)

By Davood Gozli | 13/10/202117/10/2021 by Davood Gozli

I have selected ten excerpts from Oliver Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. The book is a series of meditations on time and how we relate to time. What makes the book engaging and enlightening is Burkeman’s decision not to answer off-the-shelf questions about time management, but instead to treat our common problems about time as symptoms of deeper problems. He invites us to think about time, to question our desires about…

Culture

Efficiency, Contact, & Meaning

By Davood Gozli | 24/09/202101/10/2021 by Davood Gozli

Several recent incidents have made me think about efficiency and the desire for efficiency that appears so widespread and unconditional. You must have witnessed this desire in different forms. Students have repeatedly asked me how they could read or learn faster. Businesses want increased efficiency, automating or outsourcing steps that could be automated or outsourced, reducing the number of steps, streamlining, shortening the amount of time allocated to tasks, and increasing the outcome for the…