Reading Books as an Act of Critical Resistance

Connecting the dots by reading and interpreting books at the interdisciplinary nexus of technology, psychology, philosophy, literature, and literary criticism.

Critical Reading for the Present Moment

Critical reading: Here’s a link to the transcript of a special address by Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, delivered during the 2026 World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. Excerpts:

“So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination. …

“Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable and reliable partner in a world that is anything but. A partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.

“And we have something else. We have a recognition of what’s happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is. We are taking the sign out of the window. …

“We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. … This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and most to gain from genuine cooperation. The powerful have their power. But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.”

The references to the sign in the window are from Václav Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless, where Havel writes:

The essential aims of life are present naturally in every person. In everyone there is some longing for humanity’s rightful dignity, for moral integrity, for free expression of being and a sense of transcendence over the world of existence. Yet, at the same time, each person is capable, to a greater or lesser degree, of coming to terms with living within the lie. Each person somehow succumbs to a profane trivialization of his inherent humanity, and to utilitarianism. In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudolife. This is much more than a simple conflict between two identities. It is something far worse: it is a challenge to the very notion of identity itself.

Critical Reading for the Present Moment

Recommended Reading to Interpret the Present Moment and the Spirit of the Times