Lou Keep is my favorite undiscovered writer. He writes sam[]zdat, which is kinda about everything (think Slate Star Codex, if Scott Alexander was obsessed with questions of meaning & power).
Lately I’ve been captivated by his Uruk Series. The Uruk Series is about “modernity, nihilism, and power.”
It’s nominally a review of four books:
- Seeing Like a State – James C. Scott
- The Great Transformation – Karl Polanyi
- The True Believer – Eric Hoffer
- The Culture of Narcissism – Christopher Lasch
But the series is more expansive than just four book reviews.
I’d like to read the Uruk Series closely, and thought it would be fun to structure a reading group around this.
The group could be interesting if you enjoy questions like:
- Did modernity make things better or worse for most people?
- What do we mean when we talk about “adding value”?
- Why do well-intentioned, well-resourced governments sometimes hurt the people they’re trying to help?
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We’ll meet for the first time at 4:30 pm on Sunday, October 7th at 287 Mather St, Oakland, CA 94611 in the common room.
For the first session, we’ll talk about the series introduction, as well as why we’re interested & what we hope to get out of the group.
RSVP’s are appreciated to make planning go smoothly. If you want to stop receiving emails about this reading group, just shoot me a quick message to that effect.
Looking forward to seeing you,