For the May/June issue, the theme, loosely defined, are the shadows that haunt everything we do. The darkness isn’t new but now, it has become impossible to ignore.

There is, of course, the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the efforts of the nations who support it (the most ‘civilized’ and ‘advanced’ we’re encouraged to believe) to suppress any mention of their collective crime, shattering, as the saying goes, illusions.

We could list other things, such as the Trump administration’s dismantling of the technocratic state built during the Eisenhower era and the dropping of the liberal order’s pretences (linked to that order’s unfettered support for genocide).

The future is unwritten; unthinking pessimism is as foolish as pollyanish optimism. We can only try our best through action and thought and yes, writing, to work towards something closer to a civilization.

…

Contributing to that work, we offer an essay by Mike Templeton titled, The Form of the Invalid and Destitutent Potential. Templeton provides us with a tour of how the destitute classes have been described, analysed and treated as objects for exhibition, outside of the political economy that creates poverty.

Our own Henry Simmons reviews new works by Ansgar Allen and Jon Spielgler and in another essay, turns his attention to the ways stupidity, an understudied and misunderstood aspect of human behavior, shapes our current moment and why it presents a danger.

Yours truly, following Gore Vidal’s admonition to writers to ‘look out the window’, presents an essay that surveys the wreckage of supposed modernity, looking at the evidence from Musk’s ascension to government power to the US’ return to its roots as a nation of shoplifters (another Vidalism).