Digressionsimpressions
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Digressionsimpressions
@nescio13.bsky.social
6.2K followers 1.6K following 3.9K posts
Philosopher who got a gig as political theorist at University of Amsterdam; also known as Ghent Zeppelin. I have a daily substack:
https://digressionsimpressions.substack.com/publish
Posts Replies Media Videos
Of the Art of Government in overseeing Patronage and Clientelism (in Necker's On Executive Power in Great States)
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
Of the Art of Government in overseeing Patronage and Clientelism (in Necker's On Executive Power in Great States)
Jacques Necker’s (1792) On Executive Power in Great States was written and published in the aftermath of the constitution of 1791 and before the start of terror.
open.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Reposted by Digressionsimpressions
liberalcurrents.com
Yesterday we raised over $35,000. Today, we are excited to announce a donor who has generously offered to match the second $35,000. If you help us reach $35,000 today he will match you dollar for dollar. Please help us get there! gofund.me/638697766
The Liberal Currents Startup Fund
November 25, 2025 at 12:23 PM
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himself.bsky.social
The work that they are doing is important.
liberalcurrents.com Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 14h
Larger media outlets have wavered since the first Trump term, but we've remained steadfast in our categorical rejection of MAGA in all its aspects and our affirmation of liberal democracy and the principles that it rests on.

In the second Trump term, we are growing: www.gofundme.com/f/the-libera...
“Liberal Currents is raising funds to continue its work promoting a principled, humane liberalism: one that refuses to pick and choose whose freedom matters.” —Sharon Kuruvilla
November 25, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Reposted by Digressionsimpressions
On Pompey's Bonapartism according to Montesquieu.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
On Pompey's Bonapartism according to Montesquieu.
As regular readers know, I follow Benjamin Constant in treating Cromwell and Napoleon as the first ‘Bonapartists,’ that is, the usurpers of democracy through democratic means.
open.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Does 'Enron' stand for a lot of illegal crap, or does it stand for a house of cards?
#asking4nvidia
November 24, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Digressionsimpressions
epicureandealmaker.bsky.social
If DOGE’s true purpose was to improve efficiency, reduce bureaucratic fraud and waste, and reduce costs (it wasn’t), their first step should have been to fund, empower, and unleash the 12 departmental Inspectors General who were already in place. Instead, they fired them. This is still a good idea.
govexec.bsky.social GovExec @govexec.bsky.social · 19h
The nonprofit Democracy Forward has tapped more than a dozen former government workers as fellows to generate proposals to improve their former agencies’ effectiveness in the wake of federal workforce cuts. buff.ly/6PpRTNl
Ex-feds join forces to reimagine government post-Trump
The nonprofit Democracy Forward has tapped more than a dozen former government workers as fellows to generate proposals to improve their former agencies’ effectiveness.
www.govexec.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Reposted by Digressionsimpressions
briandavidearp.bsky.social
Wow - debunking “When Prophesy Fails” - the canonical foundation of cognitive dissonance theory onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
November 24, 2025 at 9:23 PM
On Pompey's Bonapartism according to Montesquieu.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
On Pompey's Bonapartism according to Montesquieu.
As regular readers know, I follow Benjamin Constant in treating Cromwell and Napoleon as the first ‘Bonapartists,’ that is, the usurpers of democracy through democratic means.
open.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Reposted by Digressionsimpressions
lastpositivist.bsky.social
I think that in some deep way the centre left actually agree with the right's characterisation of them, that's behind all the angsting about Professional Middle Classes contrasted with authentic true working people which always amounts to two right wing cariactures they just agree with.
November 24, 2025 at 11:38 AM
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November 24, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Idea for a netflix special: Trump picks Mamdani as his VP after the midterms.
November 23, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Digressionsimpressions
Newton, The fixed Stars, Comets, and Doomsday
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
Newton, The fixed Stars, Comets, and Doomsday
It is well known to my readers, I hope, that in the second (1713) edition of the Principia, Newton, added a General Scholium.
open.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 1:08 PM
The revolution takes a surprising turn
November 21, 2025 at 10:34 PM
November 21, 2025 at 5:09 PM
November 21, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by Digressionsimpressions
jowolff.bsky.social
Although my natural instinct would be to make a joke out of this, the length of the prison sentence shows it’s a very serious matter. And, I presume, given the way secret services operate, very unlikely to be an isolated case.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Reform UK’s former Wales leader jailed for taking bribes for pro-Russia speeches
Police say Nathan Gill received at least £40,000 while he was an MEP from Oleg Voloshyn, an alleged Russian asset
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Newton, The fixed Stars, Comets, and Doomsday
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
Newton, The fixed Stars, Comets, and Doomsday
It is well known to my readers, I hope, that in the second (1713) edition of the Principia, Newton, added a General Scholium.
open.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 1:08 PM
The old hedgehog not smiling
November 21, 2025 at 9:48 AM
"Even if it is false, what I say would still be true."--La Forge
November 21, 2025 at 9:37 AM
I love the epigraph from isaiah 4.9 on Browne's Procedure. Ht David bartha
November 19, 2025 at 5:07 PM
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profmhwhitworth.bsky.social
Nick Gaskill and I are organising a panel on Whitehead, focused on Science & the Modern World, for the MSA/BAMS conference in 2026, and are looking for an additional contributor.

Email me by 25 November on [email protected] if you’re interested! #WeirdModernisms #BAMS2026 #MSA2026
Jacket of CUP’s 1932 “cheap” edition of Science and the Modern World, bearing a quotation from Herbert Read’s review for The Criterion.
November 19, 2025 at 10:25 AM
I have an analysis (in German) of the Dutch election campaign and results for the Zentrum Liberale Moderne
libmod.de/liberaler-si...
Liberaler Sieg in Zeiten der Krise - Was die niederländische Wahl für den europäischen Liberalismus bedeutet
Die niederländischen Wahlen brachten der linksliberalen D66 einen historischen Sieg – doch dahinter steht ein Land im Spannungsfeld zwischen nativistischen Tendenzen, geschwächter Linker und einer unt...
libmod.de
November 19, 2025 at 7:21 AM
On Imperial Boomerangs in Montesquieu
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
On Imperial Boomerangs in Montesquieu
One of the joys of blogging is meeting distinguished and young scholars at conferences who confide to me that they are regular, even daily readers of these digressions. They swell my head in the most ...
open.substack.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:21 AM
On Smith and Montesquieu and that sleeping Sentinel (with a touch of Machiavelli)
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
On Smith and Montesquieu and that sleeping Sentinel (with a touch of Machiavelli)
In chapter 13 of his (1734) Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, Montesquieu notes that Roman military imperial decline is, in part, caused by a change of und...
open.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:10 AM
I meet Steven Lukes and all I can say is, "We teach you in our undergraduate sequence."
#couldbeworse
November 15, 2025 at 4:58 PM