The FBI and the Why of the Blue Sky

~ Laura Slot ~ 1 Comment

The biggest censorship case in modern history is that of the brilliant Austrian-American psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), who worked closely with Sigmund Freud. On August 23, 1956, the FBI burned 6 tonnes, 5443 kilograms, of Reich’s books and research. Reich died in prison a few months after his arrest in 1957.

Blue sky over Venlo

His research focused on ‘orgone energy’, which he described as a universal force behind life’s healing energy, the weather and the reason why the sky and water appear to our eyes as blue.… Read the rest

Myths and Constitutions

~ Laura Slot ~ Leave a comment

Freedom and power are oftentimes inversely related, similar to the way social norms and moral codes can be inversely related. In times like these, when causes and consequences are continuously overlooked, ignored and denied, inversely related correlations are useful to have on your mental radar.

john adams stamp

One common trend from the past few years is that social norms have been raised as a false argument for others to gain more power. Social norms have falsely been presented as if they are moral codes.… Read the rest

“Oh, What’ll You Do Now?”

~ Laura Slot ~ Leave a comment

On Action in the Face of Destruction

"I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’"
-Bob Dylan, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (1963)
Poster 1965
A poster from 1965

Is it comforting or worrisome to know that, sixty years ago, Bob Dylan sang about many if not all of our current problems in his early 1960s songs? Perhaps both.

You’ll recognize much our predicament in the lyrics of It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).… Read the rest

I’ve Closed My Substack

~ Laura Slot ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday I migrated most of my ‘Old Revolutions’ Substack content here to my own website. If you are subscribed to my publication Old Revolutions on Substack you don’t have to do anything, you will receive emails from my WordPress website LauraSlot.Com instead. My reasons for this change:

  • Substack is heavily collaborating with questionable, unreliable journalists like Taylor Lorenz. I do not want my content to be surrounded by that type of marketing.
… Read the rest

Addiction Cure Suppressed

~ Laura Slot

The strange disappearance of books and articles on baclofen

Around the time I was born, my 25-year-old father was most likely already addicted to alcohol, and I’ve spent a big part of my life taking care of him until he died at age 58. He was my best friend. He had the strongest will to live. He had the strongest will to quit drinking. But he couldn’t quit. In Dutch, ‘addiction’ means ‘verslaving’, ‘enslavement’.… Read the rest

Dutch Debate is Dead

~ Laura Slot

Debate Remains Dead. And They’ve Killed It.

Listen to this article

A popular song about the Covid restrictions was ‘We’ve Lost Dancing’ in 2021. In The Netherlands, we certainly lost much dancing during these years – our house-, techno- and dance DJs are the best in the world – but we also lost another valuable part of our national identity: We lost public debate. Restrictions were lifted and dancing returned, but public debate has not been restored.… Read the rest

Assumptions are Dangerous

~ Laura Slot

Especially for the Targets of PsyOps: You & Me

“Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make — bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake — if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble. Making assumptions simply means believing things are a certain way with little or no evidence that shows you are correct, and you can see at once how this can lead to terrible trouble.

… Read the rest

Revenge of the Epistemologists

~ Laura Slot

How to Acquire Knowledge?

What can we know? Perhaps not an uncontroversial question nowadays, yet an important one. Right after his speech at the Heritage Foundation Tucker Carlson said that, in today’s world, we should only cling to what we can smell. Hold on to printed books, he said, implying that it’s wise to approach anything digital with relative emotional detachment.

Aside from our senses, which are obviously important in acquiring knowledge, there are two specific prerequisites to learning that are urgently lacking in Western societies: humility and coherent emotionality.… Read the rest

On the Denial of Evil

~ Laura Slot

When Moral Relativism Becomes Nihilism

Back in 2007, Argentinian native Máxima Zorreguieta, who married Dutch crown-prince Willem-Alexander in 2002, angered many Dutch people by saying she ‘searched for the Dutch identity’ for several years but had not found it, and that ‘the Dutchman does not exist’.

This display of moral nihilism can be seen as an attempt to push so-called ‘progress’ past moral boundaries and cultural principles, to tease people into questioning the existence of their very identity.… Read the rest

All Talk, No Action

~ Laura Slot

Journalism Since the Great Financial Crisis

In early 2009 I attended a memorable panel discussion at Columbia University’s Journalism School in New York. A handful of elite journalists who were trained in finance, statistics and data came to talk to about fifty of us students. The main questions were: What could journalists have done better in reporting on the financial sector before the crash? Why hadn’t we, the best reporters in the world who were writing the first draft of history, seen the crash coming?… Read the rest