https://znetwork.org/category/topic/culture/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:29:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/category/topic/culture/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whos-afraid-of-michael-jackson/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whos-afraid-of-michael-jackson/#respond Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:29:19 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1299020 The East German secret police kept a file on Michael Jackson. He performed near the Berlin Wall in June 1988, and the preparations for his arrival were elaborate. A memo dated May 4, 1988, recorded negotiations between East German officials and the West German concert promoter—names redacted—regarding stage height and speaker placement, specifically to minimize [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whos-afraid-of-michael-jackson/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/around-the-world-global-solidarity-and-cooperation-are-remarkably-popular/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/around-the-world-global-solidarity-and-cooperation-are-remarkably-popular/#respond Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:07:37 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1299006 One of the curious ironies of our time is that, although many politicians spout heated nationalist rhetoric, rail against foreign nations, and belittle international cooperation, this approach to international affairs is not at all what most people want. The climate of aggressive nationalism is clear enough. In nations around the globe, demagogues (usually of a [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/around-the-world-global-solidarity-and-cooperation-are-remarkably-popular/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/labor-unions-military-service-patriotism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/labor-unions-military-service-patriotism/#respond Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:40:43 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298996 “A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best . . . A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/labor-unions-military-service-patriotism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/palestine-is-life-a-conversation-with-susan-abulhawa/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/palestine-is-life-a-conversation-with-susan-abulhawa/#respond Sun, 31 May 2026 13:12:24 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1298963 Susan Abulhawa in conversation with ZFriend Urška Breznik in Maribor, Slovenia during the week of commemoration of the Nakba. The conversation ranges from literature to current political reality in the Middle East to the future of Palestine.]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/palestine-is-life-a-conversation-with-susan-abulhawa/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-painter-of-lebanons-mountains/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-painter-of-lebanons-mountains/#respond Mon, 25 May 2026 19:24:26 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298665 Lebanese painter Tamara Haddad focuses on war, ecological devastation, and the physical transformations taking place on earth through her work, which places nature at its center. In her exhibition “À Mon Père,” which opened at Galerie Tanit in April 2026 and which she dedicated to her father, the artist treats trees as living beings. Using [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-painter-of-lebanons-mountains/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/pete-hegseths-desperate-crusade-for-masculine-validation/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/pete-hegseths-desperate-crusade-for-masculine-validation/#respond Mon, 25 May 2026 19:11:05 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298662 Earlier this year, President Donald Trump surveyed his top military brass on the prospect of making war in Iran. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine urged caution, presciently predicting that a ramped-up campaign against Iran could lead its leaders to close the Strait of Hormuz. However, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s self-styled “Secretary of War,” [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/pete-hegseths-desperate-crusade-for-masculine-validation/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/another-kind-of-world-cup-victory/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/another-kind-of-world-cup-victory/#respond Mon, 25 May 2026 18:59:31 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298656 Who would imagine that an international sporting event will be the next battleground in the fight against authoritarian repression? Yet that scenario is unfolding right now, and the battleground is the World Cup tournament – soon to begin in cities around the U.S. To understand the dynamics of the situation, consider the concept of state [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/another-kind-of-world-cup-victory/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-deafening-silence-of-rockstars-on-palestine/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-deafening-silence-of-rockstars-on-palestine/#respond Sun, 24 May 2026 12:42:13 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298622 Summer music festival season is approaching (assuming the diesel is available to run the generators), and one of the artists who’ll be gracing stages across Europe and the US is Jack White. Best known as the lead singer of The White Stripes, White is a vocal anti-Trump voice in the music industry, and also extremely pro-Ukraine. White [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-deafening-silence-of-rockstars-on-palestine/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/eurovision-double-standards-and-bangaranga/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/eurovision-double-standards-and-bangaranga/#comments Sun, 17 May 2026 09:20:17 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298332 Bulgaria won the 70th Eurovision Song Contest with a song called “Bangaranga”. Israel finished second, and the contest in Vienna unfolded under the familiar banners of music, unity, spectacle, and carefully managed joy. The precise meaning of “bangaranga” became one of the running jokes of the night. Asked about it, the singer Dara reportedly described [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/eurovision-double-standards-and-bangaranga/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-free-speech-recession-and-cancel-culture/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-free-speech-recession-and-cancel-culture/#respond Wed, 13 May 2026 18:48:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298105 The outrageous assaults on the free speech rights of the pro-Palestine movement are well-known. Trump’s broader assaults on the First Amendment are also well-known and understood to be a major pillar of his fascist impulses. However, all of these assaults must be understood to be happening in the context of a broader free speech repression [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-free-speech-recession-and-cancel-culture/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/art-under-seige/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/art-under-seige/#respond Tue, 12 May 2026 17:07:23 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298061 I have attended many artistic forums and hangouts around the continent. You soon realize that there are two types of artistic enclaves: those that have made it and whose framing and outputs fetch a good fortune from non-locals primarily, and the struggling artistic spaces, which are sighing in relief that somebody at least cared to keep [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/art-under-seige/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/disney-is-encouraging-and-exploiting-the-rise-of-kidults/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/disney-is-encouraging-and-exploiting-the-rise-of-kidults/#respond Tue, 12 May 2026 16:40:56 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298046 Earlier this month, the New Yorker published a mesmerizing if bleak article about the “Disney adult” — that distinct American subspecies of grown man or woman who is stuck in Peter Pan consumer mode, who trembles in delight at the trailer for the silly new Baby Yoda movie and can’t wait to splurge $80 on a light-up Star Wars popcorn bucket. What’s [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/disney-is-encouraging-and-exploiting-the-rise-of-kidults/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-ahura-mazda-to-hormuz-what-us-power-fails-to-see/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-ahura-mazda-to-hormuz-what-us-power-fails-to-see/#respond Tue, 12 May 2026 14:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298058 To speak of the Strait of Hormuz today is already to enter a language of reduction. In policy briefings and military analyses, it appears as a “chokepoint,” a narrow passage through which flows a measurable percentage of the world’s oil, a site of leverage, vulnerability, and control. The term is efficient in the way bureaucratic [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-ahura-mazda-to-hormuz-what-us-power-fails-to-see/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/americas-un-christian-autocracy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/americas-un-christian-autocracy/#respond Mon, 11 May 2026 16:31:41 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1298011 The intersection of religion and politics is a sensitive realm, but the global conversation has undeniably arrived there. The recent conflict between the Pope and the US President was not a personal tiff or a celebrity feud. Fundamental principles of 21st Century authoritarianism drive explicit rejections of core Christian beliefs. Specific actions of Donald Trump [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/americas-un-christian-autocracy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mamdani-boycotts-met-gala-instead-he-made-powerful-statement-about-class/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mamdani-boycotts-met-gala-instead-he-made-powerful-statement-about-class/#respond Sun, 10 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1297925 New York City’s mayor just BOYCOTTED the Met Gala — and what he did instead is the most powerful statement about class in America you’ll see all year. While celebrities walked the red carpet at fashion’s biggest night yesterday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent the evening spotlighting the garment workers, tailors, and retail employees who actually [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mamdani-boycotts-met-gala-instead-he-made-powerful-statement-about-class/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/vibe-to-heal-america/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/vibe-to-heal-america/#respond Sat, 09 May 2026 17:55:54 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1297899 May Day is for the workers. In some beautiful future, every worker will get May Day off. One day. But not yet. For now, it can also serve as a day when you remember the workers who are still working, and think about how you could make their lives better. On my way from Brooklyn [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/vibe-to-heal-america/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ethiopia-does-not-need-a-golden-past-it-needs-an-honest-future/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ethiopia-does-not-need-a-golden-past-it-needs-an-honest-future/#respond Mon, 04 May 2026 16:15:54 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1297700 Public argument in Ethiopia has a habit of reducing history to moral theatre. Individuals are cast as either saviours or destroyers; whole eras are remembered as either glory or ruin. The dispute over Menelik II is the clearest example. For some, he stands as the architect of a modern state; for others, as the author of conquest [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ethiopia-does-not-need-a-golden-past-it-needs-an-honest-future/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-are-watching-the-rise-of-democratic-fascism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-are-watching-the-rise-of-democratic-fascism/#comments Mon, 04 May 2026 14:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1297721 “American fascism would . . . be correspondingly democratic in the American fashion.” — Bertolt Brecht, Journals At the end of last year, Donald Trump deployed more than two thousand Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Minneapolis and St Paul, essentially occupying the Twin Cities and making his previous deployments of the National Guard to [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-are-watching-the-rise-of-democratic-fascism/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/may-day-an-answer-to-rampant-individualism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/may-day-an-answer-to-rampant-individualism/#respond Sun, 03 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1297636 In its failed attempts to undermine and abolish the May 1 bank holiday, the French government has sought to depict International Workers’ Day as an anachronism. But when we look at the problems facing society today — and the ways in which people are trying to deal with them — it strikes me that a day dedicated to the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/may-day-an-answer-to-rampant-individualism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/book-burning-by-any-other-nameeven-and-indeed-especially-on-the-leftis-despicable/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/book-burning-by-any-other-nameeven-and-indeed-especially-on-the-leftis-despicable/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1296855 There is a publishing house in Germany called Unrast Verlag that recently came to my attention. From its web site, I think it’s anarchist-aligned or at least anarchist-supportive and also seriously feminist. It appears to be quite well established as the site lists about 650 authors. I can’t read German, but I heard from a [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/book-burning-by-any-other-nameeven-and-indeed-especially-on-the-leftis-despicable/feed/ 7 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-tribute-to-irans-soulful-and-revolutionary-cinema/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-tribute-to-irans-soulful-and-revolutionary-cinema/#respond Mon, 13 Apr 2026 20:39:14 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1296832 With the people of Iran now targeted by the goons currently running the United States and Israel, Donald Trump’s recent and explicit threat to destroy their very “civilization” has only lent even more agony to it all. The word conjurs the potential loss of a truly great five-thousand-year legacy in architecture, painting, sculpture, poetry. I [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-tribute-to-irans-soulful-and-revolutionary-cinema/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-plea-to-save-cuba/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-plea-to-save-cuba/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:46:18 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1296814 As Cuba teeters on the brink of an escalating US assault, my thoughts drift back to a trip my wife and I took to Havana and Trinidad (the Cuban city) in 2017. Shelly and I fell madly in love with a place so strangely unique that it wrestles with your intuitive sense of possibility. Everything [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-plea-to-save-cuba/feed/ 3 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sudanese-resistance-theater-animates-a-future-without-war/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sudanese-resistance-theater-animates-a-future-without-war/#respond Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1296698 As the war in Sudan rages on, theater is being used to help survivors of violence heal invisible wounds, overcome isolation and build a culture of peace. When a homeland is decimated by war and life must be repeatedly rebuilt anew, how does one find the way back to purpose?  Since the start of the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sudanese-resistance-theater-animates-a-future-without-war/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/movements-need-the-critical-thinking-that-ai-destroys/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/movements-need-the-critical-thinking-that-ai-destroys/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1296629 Millions of people are now asking chatbots to summarize books, draft emails, and even explain political events to them. But what looks from one perspective like a productivity revolution may also be something more discomfiting: the quiet outsourcing of judgment itself. Writers on artificial intelligence have long claimed that it poses an existential risk because, for example, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/movements-need-the-critical-thinking-that-ai-destroys/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wallace-shawns-road-to-socialism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wallace-shawns-road-to-socialism/#respond Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:00:28 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1296565 A funny kind of energy ripples through a crowd as Wallace Shawn saunters through, as he did on March 9 at Greenwich House Theater. It wasn’t an immersive show, but Shawn, dressed in T-shirt and jeans, entered with the audience and chatted with random people as he made his way to the stage. The evening’s [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wallace-shawns-road-to-socialism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/when-war-becomes-content-we-feel-before-we-understand/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/when-war-becomes-content-we-feel-before-we-understand/#respond Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:21:51 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1296315 A word keeps appearing across political commentary and media critique, as if it might contain the problem: childish. It surfaces with remarkable consistency—leaders described as immature, as adolescent, as performing power rather than inhabiting it. The phrasing varies, but the diagnosis remains the same. Something about the tone of contemporary political communication, especially around war, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/when-war-becomes-content-we-feel-before-we-understand/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sustainable-gardening-in-the-real-world/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sustainable-gardening-in-the-real-world/#respond Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1296320 Most sustainable gardening advice doesn’t survive a real garden. It sounds right: let things grow, help pollinators, step back, work with nature. But a real garden is not an idea. It is a place where things have to work. You are trying to grow food, keep paths open, stop things taking over completely, and deal [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sustainable-gardening-in-the-real-world/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/children-of-the-lie/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/children-of-the-lie/#respond Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:09:19 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1295974 The old psychiatric phrase ‘out of touch with reality’ was once reserved for psychotic individuals failing to accurately perceive, and relate adaptively to, the evidential world. But recent years have given it a renewed and broadened usage by health professionals and culture theorists concerned about the social, psychological, political, and environmental consequences of reality erosion. Several [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/children-of-the-lie/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/us-and-them-the-curious-case-of-rights-and-personhood/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/us-and-them-the-curious-case-of-rights-and-personhood/#respond Mon, 16 Mar 2026 17:08:23 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1295831 Humanity celebrates each new declaration of rights as moral progress, as if expanding them could heal the world. Yet with each generation, the same patterns of dominance persist. Injustice is not shrinking; it is evolving. Perhaps the problem is not how we use rights but that we created them at all. The question is not [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/us-and-them-the-curious-case-of-rights-and-personhood/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/punch-up-on-division-solidarity-and-who-we-fight/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/punch-up-on-division-solidarity-and-who-we-fight/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:27:41 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1295747 Throughout history, those in power have relied on a familiar tactic: divide people against one another and often against their own best interests so they don’t look upward. Whether along lines of race, class, gender, immigration status, sexuality, ability, identity, or culture, the result is the same: ordinary people fighting sideways while systems of power [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/punch-up-on-division-solidarity-and-who-we-fight/feed/ 1