Philosophy, Politics, War
Avishai Margalit
Proportionality and Total War
Blurring the distinction between combatants and civilians erodes the much needed taboo on total wars. Total wars are wars without distinction; wars conducted by terror.
Essays
Nexus has been publishing essays in Dutch on art, culture, politics and philosophy for over twenty years. Now, we are making some of the best essays from our archive available in English online. The essays are available to our members and supporters. New essays will be added regularly.
Nederlandstalige essays uit het tijdschrift […]
History, Politics, War
Bruno Maçães
War and Technology: A Fairy Tale
There are many kinds of wars between states, fought for many reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all. The wars that shape history are those fought for the sake of the world order, such as the war between Athens and Sparta chronicled by Thucydides.
Humanism, Society, War
Leon Wieseltier
We and the Syrian Refugees
All our traditions instruct us in the obligation and the privilege of welcome. May we all be, in this terrible crisis, good sons and good daughters of our traditions, and not desist in this work until we find justice for these millions, until they find justice and a home.
History, Politics, Society
Elif Shafak
An Appeal to Cosmopolitanism
Contemporary politics — with its populist demagogues, illiberal democracies and nationalist or tribalist movements — more and more resembles the beginning to an Anatolian folk tale. Just like the listeners of those ancient folk tales, we, global citizens of today, have entered a messy, disorderly universe.
History, Politics, Society
Jean-Marie Guéhenno
The Mere Absence of War is Not Enough
Have we reached the end of days? War has been a part of the human condition since the beginning of time. But another world war in the age of nuclear weapons would spell the end of humanity as we know it.
History, Politics, Society
Nicolas Baverez
Freedom is a Fight
More than ever, war is not about economics but about power and ideology. Authoritarian empires, as Vladimir Putin shows, will do anything, including war, to prohibit freedom in what they define as their sphere of influence.
Art, Culture, History, Philosophy, Society
Laurence des Cars
The Role of the Museum
If the Louvre were to burn down, as Nietzsche feared, we would not lose a shrine of the past, or of ‘classical art’ providing the foundations of our civilization; we would lose a place of polyphony and polysemy, meaning a place where different narratives can come together to provide further density to our own time.
Rob Riemen
The Quest for Vision in the Era of Confusion, Corruption and Foolishness
Introducing the topic of the Nexus Conference 2024
History, Politics, Society
Kishore Mahbubani
The Asian Century: peaceful or not?
The 21st century will be the Asian century. On this, there’s no doubt. The only question is whether it will be peaceful or not.
History, Philosophy, Science, Society
Ray Monk
Wittgenstein, Russell and Oppenheimer on War and the Bomb
What are the lessons we have to learn from thinkers like Wittgenstein, Russell and Oppenheimer for our time? As it happens, all three of these thinkers have grappled, in fascinatingly contrasting ways, with questions of war and peace, and much could be learned from investigating how they did so.
Philosophy, Politics, Society
Donatella Di Cesare
Peace is not over
We must defect from the world of death that is being designed around us. And demand a return to democratic politics, in the proper sense of the word.
Culture, History, Society
Zena Hitz
The Division of Labor and the Sources of Consolation
The capacities to think, to study, to know and to understand are human capacities. This may seem like the most dull and obvious claim in the world, and yet we have forgotten it.
Francesco Boldizzoni
Do we still need social democracy?
I am far from believing that social democracy is viable anywhere in the world. But if there is a natural home for it, it is Europe.
Politics, Science, Society
Nexus Lecture 2022
What’s the matter with capitalism?
There is much to be said for capitalism. But it also has it dangers, not in the last place: its current threat to democracy.
Politics, Society
Allan Janik
On being European
Citizens of European national states who want to become Europeans today do well to remind themselves of the ideas that guided Robert Schuman’s efforts to heal the wounds of a society that had all but self-destructed in the course of the two world wars. To re-examine the roots of his thinking is to re-discover perhaps the most important of well-springs of European unity.
History, Politics, Society
Adin Steinsaltz
I am European
To sum up: the spirit of contemporary Europe is like that of a person past middle age, a semi-retired gentleman. Things have quieted down; most of the ferocious struggles of olden times are now abating.
Art, Culture, Philosophy
Lesley Chamberlain
Van Gogh and the light around a pair of boots
In Cuesmes, Van Gogh learnt about physical work, and philosophy after him embroidered the significance of work.
Rob Riemen
Tomb or Treasure? Nietzsche and Van Gogh discuss The Future of Western Civilization
On the occasion of the Nexus Conference 2023
Politics
Lilia Shevtsova
How the West is accommodating the Kremlin
The postmodern, transactional leaderships of Europe today find themselves poorly equipped to respond to the challenges posed by the Russian System, which is why the Western responses inevitably slide into accommodationism.
Nelofer Pazira
Flight and identity: the story of Cordoba, Kabul and my father’s suit
History, Politics, Society
Peter Frankopan
Götterdämmerung: Who – or What – will Rule the World ?
Society
John Maynard Keynes
Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren
Society
Robert Skidelsky
How Much Is Enough?
Insatiability is inherent in the human condition, but in pre-modern times its exercise was controlled by hierarchy, custom, and morals. Capitalism has unchained insatiability and, indeed, made it the principal motor of our civilisation.
Politics, Society
Rob Riemen
The War and the Future
On the occasion of the Nexus Conference 2022: The War and the Future