Michelangelo hated painting. He considered himself a sculptor.
Yet, he created one of the world’s greatest masterpieces out of sheer, unyielding spite.
Believe it or not, the commission to paint the Sistine Chapel was actually a TRAP because - 🧵1/
L'homme qui a juré la perte du capitalisme passait son temps à spéculer à la Bourse de Londres.
L'image de Karl Marx en philosophe miséreux, sacrifiant sa vie pour la cause du prolétariat, est une légende très bien entretenue.
Le père du communisme mondial avait un passe-temps inattendu : le boursicotage.
Marx n'a presque jamais eu de travail salarié. Pour vivre et écrire, il était perfusé financièrement par son grand ami Friedrich Engels.
Le détail que l'Histoire oublie souvent, c'est qu'Engels était le riche directeur d'une usine textile en Angleterre. La rédaction des grands textes marxistes a donc été financée très concrètement par l'exploitation quotidienne de la classe ouvrière.
Mais le paradoxe va encore plus loin.
En 1864, Marx touche enfin une petite série d'héritages. Au lieu d'injecter ces fonds dans l'organisation de la révolution, il se tourne vers la City londonienne.
Il achète des actions anglaises et spécule sur les obligations américaines.
Dans sa correspondance privée, il écrit à Engels pour se vanter de ses plus-values boursières. Il lui explique très sérieusement qu'il joue sur les variations du marché pour arracher de l'argent au système.
Le grand théoricien de la lutte des classes scrutait le cours de la Bourse pour optimiser ses rendements.
Pendant qu'il rédigeait Le Capital pour dénoncer l'accumulation des richesses, son auteur tentait discrètement de faire fortune grâce aux dividendes.
Victims of Power, Believers in Power
Yesterday, in response to Bo Guagua’s post defending his father, Bo Xilai, I wrote a piece in Chinese about my own impressions of Bo Xilai.
The post went viral. It will probably hit a million views today.
Bo Guagua posted a response to my piece, which ended up revealing something more interesting than Bo Xilai himself.
China’s red aristocracy can be both beneficiaries and victims of arbitrary power—and still remain deeply attached to the system that produced both.
Why?
Because their history teaches them that falling from grace may be temporary. Purge can be followed by rehabilitation. Exclusion can be followed by restoration.
That may be their deepest privilege—and their deepest tragedy.
I explore why this makes the red aristocracy an unlikely force for China’s democratic future in my new Substack piece.
https://t.co/kYhDcDrW9f
The images coming from #Nepal are terrifying. The earthquake with a magnitude of 4.4 that struck last night in Tibet triggered #avalanches of ice and #landslides. They formed blockages in the region's rivers that eventually gave way, creating this massive wave of water, mud, and rocks that swept everything in its path... #flood
New imagery from @vantortech confirms that the China-Nepal Rasuwagadhi border crossing has been completely destroyed, with the glacial flood completely scouring the valley floor.
At least 359 people are dead and nearly 1,000 missing, according to local authorities.
A massive mudslide struck Gyirong Port on the China-Nepal border, with CCTV footage showing a wall of debris slamming through the crossing in seconds, tossing vehicles and buses.
Nepal reports at least 8-16 dead with hundreds of travelers listed as missing, including 291 foreigners.
Roads, power, and communications on the Chinese side were cut.
President Xi ordered all-out search efforts.
About 430 MW of hydropower capacity, roughly 12% of Nepal's total, was affected.
“Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research.”
- Carl Jung
Jung viewed life as having a psychological “morning” and “afternoon,” with the transition into middle age beginning roughly between 35 and 40.
In his 1930 essay The Stages of Life, Jung argued that the first half of adulthood is largely focused on establishing yourself in the outside world: building a career, relationships, a family, and a social identity. Around midlife, he believed these goals could become less psychologically fulfilling, prompting a growing shift inward toward meaning, self-understanding, and what he called individuation.
Jung famously described this transition as entering the “afternoon of life.” He warned that people often entered this stage carrying the same ambitions and assumptions that had guided them in their youth, even though the second half of life demanded a different set of psychological tasks.