3 Comments

As always an interesting and thoughtful piece. I enjoy everything you write.

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Helen, thank you for lifting up this piece today. I’m glad to have read it for my first time. I’m also glad to take this opportunity to thank you for “Counterweight”—my copy arrived recently, and I’m grateful for all the work that went into it!

About the “provided you do no harm to others” condition: this was a key part of my moral upbringing (thanks, Mom!)—and nowadays for me, it points to the ethical question of using animals for food. Is this issue something you’ve tackled yet, in your writings? One thought-provoking essay I highly recommend is Mylan Engel’s “The Mere Considerability of Animals.” Would love to know what you make of it: https://www.niu.edu/engel/_pdf/Mere.pdf

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It's like this Foucaultian c.q. Lacanian belief that reality (or read: liberalism) is entirely structured by our language and other social affects - thus excluding the possibility of human excellence and constructive theory, i. c. excluding hope.

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