Sign in

Simon Gansinger

@simgans.bsky.social
1.2K followers 341 following 128 posts

Philosophy | Law | Politics Postdoc at MPI-CSL Freiburg

PostsRepliesMedia
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
Claim: "Rousseauianism's plateauing obsequiously" is the only proposition in the English language that contains both (1) a truth (2) and four consecutive vowels in every word that it's made up of.
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
Here's a link to the article: archive.org/details/Haus... And a useful summary (in German): geschichtedergegenwart.ch/gender-studi...
geschichtedergegenwart.ch
Gender Studies und die „Pola­ri­sie­rung der Geschlechts­cha­rak­tere“. Ein alter Text verdient es, neu gelesen zu werden.
Gender Studies gelten als rotes Tuch: als eine angebliche Pseudo-Wissenschaft, die „entlarvt“ werden müsse. Doch diese Kritik entlarvt sich selbst, weil sie an das intellektuelle Potential z.B. der Ge...
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
Roughly, Hausen argues that post-Enlightenment discourse gave rise to a rigidly domestic essence of femininity, thereby stabilising the public-private distinction along gender lines. The title translates to "Polarisation of 'gender roles': Reflecting the separation of work and family life".
120
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
I just finished Karin Hausen's 1976 article "Die Polarisierung der 'Geschlechtscharaktere': Eine Spiegelung der Dissoziation von Erwerbs- und Familienleben". Is anyone aware of an English translation? It's influential in the German context, yet fairly unknown beyond that.
110
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
I'm super looking forward to your book, JP! So refreshing to see metanormative theory put to practice
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Power phrases to impress your colleagues at the next post-work aperitivo
Paragraph from page 79 of Cao Xueqin, "A Dream of Red Mansions" (Peking: Foreign Language Press 1978)
020
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Really nice to see this piece published (co-authored with the great @yvette-wang.bsky.social). It's basically an endorsement of counter-paradigmatic research disguised as a symposium report ;-) exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/ex...
exchanges.warwick.ac.uk
What Does It Mean to Explain? An interdisciplinary symposium report: An interdisciplinary symposium report | Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal
052
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Within ten years, England lost close to 75% of people identifying as "English-only" and almost tripled the percentage of "British-only" – simply because the census changed the order of these options. Sounds sus. Why wouldn't the numbers track (though potentially exaggerate) a real shift?
From the Economist, 16 April 2025
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
From the interstices between workweek and weekend: "Thought arose in the course of the liberation from terrible nature (...). Pleasure is nature's revenge. In pleasure, human beings divest themselves from thought, escape from civilisation." (Adorno/Horkheimer, DoE, Stanford 2008, p. 82)
Unassuming still life of an amber beverage and an e-reader against the background of an IKEA table
020
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Just a local newspaper using "on every corner" on every corner. "Ganter Beer is on every corner in Freiburg. And that's exactly what the brewery celebrates, with the slogan 'Drink local on every corner' for a campaign that celebrates local Ganter on every corner."
Article about a local brewery that seems to sell its beer on every corner, in the Freiburger Wochenschau
020
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
The FT dips a toe in the dialectic of enlightenment: "In ever scarier times, it is soothing to believe that a secret plan is at work, even if it is a distasteful plan. ... liberal societies struggle to understand — or even to credit the existence of — irrational actors." on.ft.com/4i6islx
on.ft.com
The hopeless search for Trump’s cunning plan
Attempts to read grand strategy into the US president’s doings have run their course
020
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Source: on.ft.com/44emrJv
on.ft.com
So much winning — in 15 charts
The fallout from ‘Liquidation Day’
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
On 1 April, the White House celebrated the beginning of the "Financial Literacy Month". Is this all just the punch line of a very elaborate practical joke?
Screenshot of an article in the Financial Times, which contains an excerpt of a message from the White House inviting Americans to "bolster their financial knowledge".
120
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
(2/2) "[...] The warfare among men in war and in peace is the key to the insatiability of the species and to its ensuing practical attitudes, as well as to the categories and methods of scientific intelligence in which nature appears increasingly under the aspect of its most effective exploitation."
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
Horkheimer on the politics of galactic ambitions in late capitalism: (1/2) "[M]an's avidity to extend his power in two infinities, the microcosm and the universe, does not arise directly from his own nature, but from the structure of society." (Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, 1947/1974, p. 74)
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
(3/3) "... and it’s certainly the most brilliant and rich defense of left-wing ideologies that have been on the rise in the last half-century. And I've benefited from reading Marcuse." Weirdly, the last sentence is omitted from the transcript.
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
(2/3) "I think you have to read Marcuse for catastrophic errors in judgment and for a kind of repulsive politics in outcome. There are certain insights that can be salvaged from his work,...
110
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
(1/3) Good news, critical theorists! You might make it onto the syllabus of Christopher Rufo's seminar on the decline of Western civ "Last question: You’re in charge of a curriculum, and you have to include one author you are opposed to ... Who do you pick? Rufo: Without a doubt, Herbert Marcuse."
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Anti-D.E.I. Crusader Who Wants to Dismantle the Department of Education (Gift Article)
Christopher Rufo’s mission to make universities feel “existential terror.”
130
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
The webform of a large German funding body asks me to add "last-name prefixes". Among the options are: - "Baron vom" - "Ritter von" - "dell'Isola" - "L'Homme" and of course - "Freiherr v.u.z." I'm feeling seen, though I'm mildly displeased that it won't allow me to specify the acreage of my estate
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Two days to go!
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Cheered myself up by looking at recent polling for the Hungarian election next year.
Polls in Hungary show Tisza at 41% and Fidesz at 37%
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Sorry, my phrasing was imprecise. I should have written: "Among all those who voted in 2025 but who did not vote in 2021 etc."
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
The numbers match the ones given by the main German broadcaster: www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/...
tagesschau.de
110
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Among those who did not cast a ballot in Germany's previous federal election, close to a majority voted for the hard-right: 48% AfD 24% CDU 11% BSW 8% Left 7% SPD 3% Greens Liberal democracy depends on passive disillusionment.
Illustration of voter shifts in Germany's federal election, highlighting the bloc of voters who did not vote in 2021
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Saying you didn't intend the pun when you actually did is not dialectics!
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
(Addendum: the campaign posters of CDU and AfD would probably make it onto the list but there are few-to-none in the neighbourhood I live in, which is dominated by the ominous face of #3 as if it was a local idol, ready to haunt you if you don't surrender your vote to its contentless creed.)
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
#1 Positive Affirmations. "Zuversicht" means confidence or optimism. Which is what you need in copious amounts when you're running for chancellor while polling below 15%.
Greens campaign poster
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
#2 A Man Lost in the Woods. "Last seen on 6 November 2024. If you have any information, please contact the FDP."
FDP campaign poster
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
#3 Just a Face. This is literally just a face.
Volt campaign poster
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
#4 "Become part of the rebellion." It's easy: vote, like, and wait for the means of production to be transferred into public ownership. (An even more asinine MLPD poster reads: "Make Socialism Great Again")
MLPD campaign poster
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
#5 A Man Holding a QR Code. Nothing screams modernity like a square-shaped barcode. I imagine a room full of campaign managers in their 50s breaking into song when they come up with the idea to make young voters pull out their phones to understand what's going on here.
SPD campaign poster
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
🧵 This is my first federal election in Germany. Having lived in Austria and the UK, I'm used to dumb campaign posters, but the Germans really take it to a new level. Here are my top 5 displays of election dadaism:
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Horkheimer often talks about the "immediatisation" of social relations under authoritarianism (eg "When power does not have to take the detour via the domestic market, intellectual mediations, such as law, disappear".) Does he elaborate on the *concept* of mediation anywhere? 🙏 for any pointers
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
@Austria: you know things are *bad* when the best political news that's come out of the country in several months is that the coalition talks have finally broken down.
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Both Kirchheimer's initial essay and his review of Schmitt's book are translated and re-printed in Scheuerman's "The Rule of Law under Siege"
degruyter.com
The Rule of Law Under Siege
In the pathbreaking essays collected here, Neumann and Kirchheimer demonstrate that the death of democracy and the rise of fascism during the first half of the twentieth century suggest crucial lesson...
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Addendum: Carl Schmitt stole the title of "Legality and Legitimacy" from Otto Kirchheimer, whose "Legalität und Legitimität" was published some weeks before Schmitt's. In 1933, Kirchheimer (with Nathan Leites) published a rejection of Schmitt's book, highlighting its authoritarian implications
110
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
I was hoping we could wait a little longer before revisiting Carl Schmitt's "Legality and Legitimacy"
Post on X by JD Vance, stating that "judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power"
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Musk "should get therapy", Andreessen can't "jog 10 feet", Zuckerberg "is such a beta", Trump "wants nothing more than have the NYT love him"... The flaw of the ad hominem critique is that it unintentionally buys into the deluded story of the narcissist: what makes him important is his personality
nytimes.com
Opinion | What Elon Musk Wants
The journalist Kara Swisher discusses Elon Musk's goals in government — and the factors that have led to his radicalization.
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
I'd say the call for concretes is closing in 3 weeks but that would be too corny.
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Do hills in Freiburg just... vanish? "Loretto Street – named after the former Loretto Hill, once the 'Slier Hill'"
Street sign of Lorettostraße in Freiburg, Wiehre
020
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
My hunch is that the point of all these executive actions that are legally "unclear", "illegal", or "really, really illegal" is to dilute the importance of legality altogether. Not to push the boundaries of the law but to make the question "Was this done according to the law?" sound silly
040
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Didn't check the date, but then tell me that an article on tech oligarchy is from 2024 without telling me that it is from 2024: "'Look at what Zuckerberg is doing on the left with his money,' she said. But seriously, look at what Mark Zuckerberg is doing with his money these days: not very much!"
motherjones.com
American billionaires have long placed their thumbs on the scale of democracy—but never like this.
Welcome to the oligarch election.
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Max Horkheimer: "Die Rackets und der Geist" (Rackets and Spirit), in Vol. 12 of Gesammelte Schriften, edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, Frankfurt: Fischer, 287–291, at p. 289.
010
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
"Performance and skill are sometimes an incentive for a racket to admit the outsider ... The Volsci readily welcomed the fugitive Coriolanus, whose affinity to power shone brightly. He was a man of the gentile rackets and had the qualities of a general, which makes someone invariably recommendable."
Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and Elon Musk at the inauguration of Donald Trump in the Capitol Rotunda on 20 January 2025 (Source: Julia Demaree Nikhinson—POOL/AFP/Getty Images)
121
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
“What’s not positive,” he added, “is when all of a sudden he tries to put his half-baked ideas which are really about the implementation of techno-feudalism on a global scale. I don’t support that and we’ll fight it.”
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
“He will do anything to make sure that any one of his companies is protected or has a better deal or he makes more money. His aggregation of wealth, and then — through wealth — power: that’s what he’s focused on."
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
"Peter Thiel, David Sachs, Elon Musk, are all white South Africans,” Bannon observed. “He should go back to South Africa. Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, we have them making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”
100
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Whatever that salute by Musk was or wasn't (apart from clownishly uncool), he's 1930s enough to attract the ire of modern-day Strasserism. Here's Steve "Gregor" Bannon on Breitbart (11 Jan 2025): "He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down."
110
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Or let's ask others, eg what did Zuckerberg and Kavanaugh giggle about at yesterday's inauguration luncheon? Maybe about Kavanaugh's buddy Joel Kaplan's becoming President of Global Affairs at Meta?
000
Simon Gansinger @simgans.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
My article on Horkheimer and Roe v Wade made it into Exchanges' list of most popular articles of 2024 😳 Am I benefitting from Trump's re-election? Ok let's not ask questions...
exchanges.warwick.ac.uk
Max Horkheimer on Law's Force of Resistance | Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal
120