Author: Daniel D. Watkins

  • ‘this’ is this – on the weaponisation of moral outrage

    originally published 21st September 2023 “Consumer capitalism is a theoretical economic and social political condition in which consumer demand is manipulated in a deliberate and coordinated way on a very large scale through mass-marketing techniques, to the advantage of sellers.” (Wikipedia) To the casual and disinterested bystander, the recent hysteria over Russell Brand sits on…

  • war lore

    originally posted 14th January 2024 Narratives don’t give us reality or truth but we live by narratives because they give us meaning. And meaning, the way we interpret sequences of events, is more important to us than truth. It’s in this way that history, our own sense of our lives and who we are and…

  • antisemitism now

    It’s interesting that when the existence of Israel, the Jewish nation, is once again threatened by so many delightful human beings, the opportunity for anti-semitism in the U.K. and, of course, elsewhere, is aired so passionately, so disingenuously, not just by anti-Semitic journalists and keyboard warriors, but media institutions like the BBC.  It’s also interesting…

  • angry humans, happy birds

    We need to live more like birds and less like dogs. Most birds are social animals, like dogs, but with a key difference, being that, unlike many mammalian species, avians are generally free of group hierarchy.  Of course, this may only be a general rule for birds that can fly. After all, chickens, for example,…

  • jeff buckley’s girlfriend

    I met Jeff Buckley’s girlfriend in New York that summer. She said she had been Jeff Buckley’s girlfriend. And I believed her. And even if she hadn’t been, she had. You know, the racked intensity of that summer where every oily brown river appalled. There was still that tortured American soul with all the raw…

  • departures

    There was a piano near our departure gate. I sat outside Starbucks, while we waited for our flight and to people watch. Sal had gone to queue.  While I was waiting, three teenagers approached the piano for a laugh. Two were egging on a third to sit down and bang the keys. I was curious…

  • taxue

    One morning, quite a while ago, before Hong Kong became what it is, a horse appeared on the beach, just a silhouette small upon the white sand. It stood at the far end near the rocks wild but not free, being hemmed in on the right by the sea and on the left by the…