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Humanity Is Evolving Its Consciousness: The Role Of Archetypal Energies As Guides During An Unfolding Weeding Out And Alignment Process, Carroy U. Ferguson

Psychology Faculty Publication Series

Humanity is evolving its consciousness at individual and collective levels.  Given these seemingly tumultuous times, as of this writing (January 2026), to make such a statement may sound like a strange thing to say.  However, I suggest that if you are alive today and if you are reading these words, these are the very times for which you were born—to assist Humanity as it evolves its consciousness with your unique gifts, whatever they may be.  That is, this period of our individual and collective human being-ness may be characterized as an unfolding period of weeding out and alignment with the …

The Killing Fields Of South Africa: Eco-Wars, Species Apartheid, And Total Liberation, Steve Best

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Corporate Power, Ecological Crisis, And Animal Rights, Carl Boggs

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

“When And Where [We] Enter…”? Intersectional Ideologies And Experiences In African American Support For Lgbtq+ Communities, Monique L. Lyle, Todd Shaw

Faculty Publications

This article examines how intersectional ideologies and experiences of marginalization affect the extent to which African Americans support or oppose the marginalization of LGBTQ communities. We posit that awareness of the race-gender positionality of African American women, as well as the unique positionalities of other marginalized African American subgroups, is critical to understanding the conditions under which Black Americans embrace LGBTQ rights and communities. Using the Black respondent subsample of the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Study, we test the extent to which intersectional theories explain African American cross-group consciousness with LGBTQ persons and support for LGBTQ rights and communities. In …

Killing The Field Of Dreams: George W. Bush, Empire And Politics Of Misrecognition, Jeremy Varon

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Abject Futures: The (Re)Negotiation Of Nafta And The Canadian Power Elite, Dean Ray

Fast Capitalism

This paper draws upon the critical political economy tradition in Canada to examine the renegotiation of NAFTA and the class interests at work in the final agreement. It draws on a range of ethnographic and media sources in its argumentation. The paper provides a comprehensive review of Canadian Political Economy before it turns to the negotiation and the actions of Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. It is argued that Freeland was adept at appearance management and manipulating media presentations of herself to make the negotiation seem more laboured then it was. In the end, the agreement protected Canada's crown jewel, …

Twenty-Five Years And Still Recovering: A Brief Reflection On Nafta's Impact On Southside, Virginia, Sandra Via

Fast Capitalism

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has had a detrimental effect on Southside, Virginia. Southside, Virginia, particularly Martinsville, VA and Henry County, VA served as a hub for the furniture and textile industries, such as Bassett Furniture and Bassett-Walker Apparel, in the United States. After NAFTA's implementation, these companies eliminated jobs and moved manufacturing overseas to China or across the border to Mexico where they could exploit low wage workers. Neglecting the social responsibility that these corporations had to the workers that had built their companies and made their products world renown, manufacturers closed their doors leaving workers without …

Challenging The Double-Negation Principle: An Analysis Of Strategic Theories Of Sun Zi, Carnot, And Clausewitz Through Intuitionist Logic, Antonino Drago

Comparative Philosophy

To study a subject similarly represented in Eastern and Western cultures, I examine some classical theories of war strategy according to a new analytical method. This method is based on the recognition that the most important strategic theories are organized as theories essentially not deduced from axioms according to classical logic. Such theories reason through doubly negated propositions (DNPs), whose meanings differ from those of their affirmative counterparts. This corresponds to the use of intuitionist logic instead of classical logic. An inspection of the works of the texts of Sun Zi, Lazare Carnot, and Clausewitz reveals many such propositions, and …

Minding Machines: A Note On Alienation, Sascha Engel

Fast Capitalism

This paper discusses an underrepresented dimension of contemporary alienation: that of machines, and particularly of computing machines. The term 'machine' is understood here in the broadest sense, spanning anything from agricultural harvesters to cars and planes. Likewise, 'computing machine' is understood broadly, from homeostatic machines, such as thermostats, to algorithmic universal machines, such as smartphones. I suggest that a form of alienation manifests in the functionalist use and description of machines in general; that is, in descriptions of machines as mere tools or testaments to human ingenuity. Such descriptions ignore the real and often capricious existence of machines as everyday …

The Twilight Of Automation, Mario Khreiche

Fast Capitalism

The future of work has come under renewed scrutiny amidst growing concerns about automation threatening widespread joblessness and precarity. While some researchers rush to declare new machine ages and industrial revolutions, others proceed with business as usual, suggesting that specialized job training and prudent reform will sufficiently equip workers for future employment. Among the points of contention are the scope and rate whereby human labor will be replaced by machines. Inflated predictions in this regard not only entice certified technologists and neoclassical economists, but also increasingly sway leftist commentators who echo the experts' cases for ramping up the proliferation of …

Max Weber's Odyssey: The Wild West, The Frontier, And The Capitalist Spirit, David Norman Smith

Fast Capitalism

This article examines one aspect of Weber's thinking with respect to the United States: his view of frontier regions as new horizons for capitalism. This was not an incidental or side issue for Weber, whose famed analysis of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was only half-finished when he traveled through the United States in 1904. Nor is Weber's outlook on this topic immaterial for contemporary historians, many of whom now affirm quasi-Weberian views under such rubrics as "the New Western" history. A full account of Weber's notion of the frontier would exceed the limits of a journal …

Divining Domination: Steve Bannon As A Political Mystagogue, Tony Allen Feldmann

Fast Capitalism

Right-wing commentators (on tv, radio, newspapers, documentaries, or the internet) are often considered a source of misinformation and radicalization in American politics. Understanding the role of such commentators in the political sphere has taken on new significance since the election of Trump, who regularly takes talking points as well as political advice from prominent figures in right-wing media. The purpose of these political "shock jocks" also extends beyond mere political commentary: They offer their audience a framework for understanding the world. This framework contains certain reified perceptions of society and history. Durkheim and those working in his tradition have long …

Hamlet's Father: Hauntology And The Roots Of The Modern Self, Lukas Szrot

Fast Capitalism

In his 1949 work Hamlet's Ghost, Richard Flatter wrote of the ghost of Hamlet's father that the play ultimately belongs to him, to the ghost.   Modernity, like the play, belongs to its ghosts, to its dead fathers haunting their wayward sons, the metaphysical specters it imperfectly endeavors to exorcise. Critical theory has often focused on the possibility, and the contours, of a utopia populated by liberatory spirit and liberated persons. Less well explored, however, are the implications for tradition, religion, and the transmission of culture at a metaphorical echelon—those ostensibly "pre-modern" ideas which the broader project of Enlightenment liberalism never …

Sociopoetics In The Works Of Shakespeare, Thomas Bechtold

Fast Capitalism

This study is meant to develop an immanent critique following the dialogism of socio-poetics in the literary criticism of Mikhail Bakhtin. Socio-poetics in the reception and composition of Shakespeare's works reflect the first intimations of social and political transformation to a modern nationalized society from a premodern feudal society. This study explores Shakespeare's use of metaphor through his dramatizations and characterizations at the dawn of modernity and the decline of feudalism: identifying contradictions and tensions that intimate this transformation in English society and language, and, providing an approach to this globalizing language that partakes in simultaneous modes of confabulation and …

Shakespeare's Plays Of Deranged Authority: The King's Three Bodies, Daniel Krier

Fast Capitalism

Shakespeare's plays are situated upon the threshold of two worlds: a declining traditional order torn apart by political rivalry and ascendant early-modern capitalism. The history plays dramatize infighting among warring factions of privileged aristocrats as well as revolutionary forces propelled by the rising commons and the politics of commodity. Legitimate authority is rarely secure among the kings perched upon Shakespearean thrones. In Shakespeare's Henriad and King John, crowns are contested from the moment they are placed upon royal heads, inspiring Kantorwicz's political theology: the corporeal body of short-lived kings is distinct from the sovereign's sublime body that reigns without cease. …

The Sorrows Of Modern Subjectivity: Capital, Infinity Disease, And Werther's Hysterical Neurois, Christopher Altamura

Fast Capitalism

In this article I analyze Werther, the protagonist of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. I argue that Werther and his sorrows must be understood within the context of the unique configuration of alienation(s) present in modern societies, characterized by the sui generis combination of capital, egoism and anomie, and asceticism. Further, I argue the sociologically alienating conditions of modern societies create neurotic subjects of repression who lack compensatory symbols of moral worth, which drives them to pursue equivalent signification via fantasy. Finally, I argue that Werther represents an extreme case of hysterical neurosis emanating from …

The Master's Race: Phallic Whiteness In "The Young Savages", Graham Cassano

Fast Capitalism

This essay examines two parallel, historically contemporaneous, depictions of the Freudian master-slave dialectic. John Frankenheimer's first film, The Young Savages (1961), reconstructs Hank Bell's (Burt Lancaster) repressed transformation from Italian racial other into a white ethnic. In doing so, the film approaches the possibility that race itself may be a kind of social construction. To get at this notion, the film explores the meaning of race in an overtly psychoanalytic language. In fact, The Young Savages echoes the argument of Jacques Lacan's nearly contemporaneous essay, "The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian unconscious." Lacan's …

Ignoring Goethe's Faust: A Critical-Theoretical Perspective On American Ideology, Harry F. Dahms

Fast Capitalism

The neglect of Goethe, his work in general, and Faust in particular, in English-speaking countries, is notorious. While Shakespeare's plays have been prominent and widely performed in German-speaking countries, the same is not true for Goethe in the English-speaking world. Focusing non-exclusively on Faust, and cutting a link to Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, I will endeavor to delineate problematic aspects of American ideology, and what it would take, within U.S. sociology, to be cognizant of the latter.   Georg Lukacs wrote about Goethe and Faust, and so did Theodor W. Adorno and Leo Loewenthal, highlighting its importance to critical theory. The …

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves, Mark P. Worrell

Fast Capitalism

Introduction to the Symposium: "Cultural Reflections of Capital."

Author Biography

Mark P. Worrell, SUNY Cortland Professor, Retired

From Private Custody To Public Policy: The Politics Of State Responsibility For Post-Divorce Abandoned Children (Hadhanah) In Serang, Indonesia, Ali Faisal, Naf’An Tarihoran, B Syafuri, Nurul Ma’Rifah

Jurnal Wacana Politik

This article examines how hadhanah (child custody and care) can be reframed from a private family matter into a public policy issue, positioning the state as a responsible actor when children become abandoned after divorce. Drawing on a normative–juridical and qualitative socio-legal analysis of Islamic family law, national legislation, and municipal policy instruments, the study uses Serang City as an illustrative case of policy urgency. The findings demonstrate a systematic implementation gap between Indonesia’s constitutional mandate to care for abandoned children and local-level governance practice: (1) a legal–administrative gap, where court-based custody decisions and parental obligations do not automatically trigger …

Factors Related To Digital Transformation In Local Government: A Scoping Review, Herry Soesanto, Margaretha Rumbekwan

Jurnal Wacana Politik

This study examines factors shaping digital transformation in local government and the mechanisms through which these factors influence implementation outcomes. Using a scoping review design, the study maps recent empirical and conceptual literature to capture the breadth and diversity of evidence. A systematic search was conducted in Scopus, Springer, and EBSCOhost using the keywords “digital transformation” AND “local government”, limited to English-language publications published between 2021 and 2025. The search identified 246 records, of which 22 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the final analysis. Extracted data were synthesized using a multi-level analytical framework encompassing individual, organizational, …

Disruptive Religion And Ethical Opposition: The Force Of Moral Authority In Indonesia’S Democratic Consolidation, Savran Billahi, Idris Thaha, Suryani Suryani, Mohammad Ezha Fachriza

Jurnal Wacana Politik

This article argues that democratic consolidation in Indonesia cannot be explained solely through the performance of formal institutions. By foregrounding ethical opposition as a missing variable in dominant consolidation theories, it shows that democracy has also been sustained by a normative infrastructure that legitimizes critique beyond institutional arenas. Based on qualitative historical analysis of Abdurrahman Wahid’s and Ahmad Syafii Maarif’s oppositional practices under the New Order and in the post-Reformasi period, the article finds that moral authority enabled non-institutional opposition to constrain state power, normalize dissent, and protect democratic quality. While both figures articulated a corrective and non-subversive mode of …

From Bad Apples To Zombies? Walking Dead Leadership In The Contemporary University, Tara Brabazon

Fast Capitalism

Leadership remains an open sewer of assumptions, ego, platitudes and potential. When contextualized within an international university sector struggling and grasping to find a purpose, leadership becomes toxic and dangerous. This article reactivates, challenges and then transforms Ulrich Beck's zombie concept and applies it to university leadership, management and administration. I probe the renegotiation of power and identity, with particular attention to recent scandals and appointments of university ‘leaders.' This article also signals a movement from cosmopolitan sociology to claustropolitan cultural studies, repositioning leadership in universities at the end of the world.

Author Biography

Tara Brabazon, Dean of Graduate Research …

The Revolution On Facebook: Political Education On Social Media Through Nonformal Andragogical Communities Of Practice, Donald Moen

Fast Capitalism

This paper considers political education through nonformal communities of practice on social media. While formal and informal classroom environments remain important in the 21st century, most adult learning occurs in the nonformal context. Communities of practice on social media provide substantial knowledge dissemination and identity-defining communities of practice, also furnishing the opportunity for praxis. Communist Facebook groups provide communities of practice through knowledge dissemination, community membership, and praxis. This paper defines who these groups are, what they do, how they differ from other groups, their education and tools, how they exist outside of state control, and how they fit inside …

Uk And The 'Razor-Wire Humanitarianism': The Refugee Crisis And The Aesthetic Of Violence, Yasmin Ibrahim

Fast Capitalism

When the 'refugee crisis' in Calais became an issue of renewed concern in the summer of discontent in 2015, UK's reticent stance towards the crisis was captured through its measured approach. A notable riposte from the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, was to send in yet more security fencing to fortify the borders in Calais to assuage the disaffect from the truckers and the public. Dubbing this as UK's 'razor wire humanitarianism', the paper examines how the material artefact of the razor wire is implicated in the aesthetic of violence towards the refugee and migrant bodies in the camps of …

The Politics Of Curiosity, Eva-Maria Swidler

Fast Capitalism

Curiosity, a simultaneously intellectual and emotional phenomenon, is surprisingly unstudied, yet pivotal for social critics and activists to understand. While recognizing curiosity as frequently positive and necessary for creating new solidarities and political movements, it also considers the social and political roots and consequences of incuriosity, apathy, and ignorance, including such topics as willful apathy as cultural resistance and self-defense, ignorance as an ethical choice, incuriosity as arrogance, and the generalized anxiety of neoliberal society and the shrinking of curiosity.

Author Biography

Eva-Maria Swidler, Curtis Institute of Music

Eva Swidler is an environmental historian and political economist with additional interest …

Was Karl Marx An Ecosocialist?, Carl Boggs

Fast Capitalism

Author Biography

Carl Boggs, National University

Carl Boggs is the author of many books in the fields of critical social theory, American politics, U.S. foreign policy and military history, film studies, and ecology. After receiving his Ph.D. at U.C., Berkeley he taught at Washington University in St. Louis, Carleton University in Ottawa, UCLA, USC, and U.C., Irvine. He is currently professor of social sciences at National University in Los Angeles. He is a regular contributor to the magazine CounterPunch, is a member of the executive board of the Global Studies Association, and is involved with such journals as Theory …

Contemptable Safety: Coronavirus, Neoliberalism, And The Moral Value Of Universities, Mark K. Ryan

Fast Capitalism

Author Biography

Mary K. Ryan, Washington & Jefferson College

Mary K. Ryan is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of the Public Policy Program at Washington & Jefferson College. Mary received her Ph.D. in Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought from Virginia Tech. Mary's research on race, inequality, social justice, and democracy includes chapters in Poverty in American Popular Culture (McFarland); Protecting Whiteness: Whitelash and the Rejection of Racial Equality (University of Washington Press); Critical Insights: Civil Rights Literature Past and Present (Salem); Surveillance, Race, Culture (Palgrave Macmillan); and Spaces of Surveillance (Palgrave Macmillan) as well as journal …

Who Wouldn't Get The Joke?: Vile Sovereignty, Vanishing Mediators, And Trump, Simon Orpana, Evan Mauro

Fast Capitalism

This article considers Trump as an example of "vile sovereignty," a concept Michel Foucault put forward in the mid 1970s to describe "the exercise of power through the explicit disqualification of the person who wields it" (2003b: 35)—a "childish discourse" that disqualifies the speaker at the very moment that they are being appealed to as a figure of authority (36). We argue that this concept helps illuminate contemporary US politics, where Trump's carnivalesque flaunting of political decorum and morality paradoxically seem to buttress the power of his Republican Party. Building upon our theorization of the role vile sovereignty has played …