I've shared my thoughts on Alasdair MacIntyre before, but a follower asked me to comment on a Philosophize This! segment on a couple of books he published after After Virtue, and so I did.

https://philosophics.blog/2026/04/15/rival-moral-approaches-of-the-modern-world-alasdair-macintyre/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

I share a link to the video content as well as a NotebookLM podcast summary.

#pilodsophy #psychology #critique #blog #video #podcast #society #culture #normativeethics #morality #ethics #MacIntyre #books #greece #aristotle #virtue #liberalism #modernity #commentary #reaction

A Trip to the Moon

History, Artemis, and Humanity’s Space Junk

There is something almost innocent, at first glance, about Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon. The painted sets, the theatrical gestures, the famous image of the capsule lodged in the eye of the moon — all of it feels whimsical, handmade, full of wonder. It bears the marks of ingenuity in their freshest form. Cinema is still young. Imagination is learning what machinery can do. Human beings are discovering that they can build not only devices, but dreams.

And yet, to watch the film closely is to feel a disturbance beneath the delight.

The voyage is not simply a journey. It is an invasion. The moon is not approached with humility or reverence, but penetrated, subdued, and turned into a stage for conquest. The lunar beings are encountered not as neighbors in wonder but as hostile “natives,” there to be struck, shattered, and overcome. The travelers return not merely with experience, but with a captive and a triumphal procession. What looks at first like fantasy reveals itself as a little parable of empire.

That is why the film still matters. It is not only an early science-fiction spectacle. It is an early warning.

Read the full essay at PeaceGrooves.

What is 'good' #citizenship? As #India gained independence in 1947, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur talked about 'constructive citizenship'. Shalu Nigam (IMPRI & PUCL, Delhi) discusses the #radicalism of her thought in forging India's #modernity.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2026/04/13/the-constructive-citizenship-of-rajkumari-amrit-kaur/

📝 Plot: In a quiet French village, a mayor plans to replace a meadow and old tree with a modern media center, triggering debate among locals. A teacher, writers, and villagers discuss progress, culture, and ecology, exposing tensions between modernization and tradition in a reflective, dialogue-driven story about values, community, and the cost of change.

#Larbrelmaireetlamediatheque #Comedy #Drama #Politics #RuralLife #Ecology #Philosophy #Debate #Modernity

#borisvian #musique #music #jacquestati #mononcle #playtime #trafic #modernity #architecture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PTqTjHs5c0

Two Ladies Taking a Walk (19th century) by Constantin Guys.

Source: The Metropolitan Museum

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/9b3a5704-4121-433f-ae24-78770302d38d

#abstract #modernity #illness #modernism #convalescence #movement #walking #paris #art #publicdomain

In many respects “science” is what it means to be “modern” and, in the 20th century, science would be inextricably entangled with all the hopes and fears of modernity, but how should we see science in our own “post-modern” world?

Comparisons with the Reformation might help

(old paper of mine)
#science #authority #modernity #postmodernity #Renaissance
https://literacyofthepresent.wordpress.com/writing-2/the-authority-of-science-and-the-postmodern-reformation/.

Fjord Landscape, Georg Anton Rasmussen

I think this guy figured out how to paint this exactly right. I'm reading a thing about community built on a human-comprehensible scale, maybe that's why I can relax when I look at this. At the same time, I don't speak Norse and probably wouldn't be welcome here. What the f- do we do with this American from the future? Why is he just sitting there looking at the water, crying? He doesn't even know how to milk goats or gut fish. 😂
#art #life #modernity #cityLife #special #holy #safety #peace #love #fishing #farming