Blog — Jamie Aroosi

Death and Taxes

I don't think that this is a particularly novel idea, but the more I think about it, the more the recent bailout seems magnitudes worse than anything we've seen before.

We're likely going to see unemployment at levels that will rival those of the great depression. This is a tragedy in itself, but what might be worse, is that as a result of decades of tax cuts for corporations and the rich, working class and middle class income tax plays a disproportionate role in funding government services relative to other forms of taxes. In other words, in other countries, taxes on the wealthy and on corporations constitute a much higher percentage of total tax revenue, but here, decades of tax cuts have meant that the tax burden falls overwhelmingly on average people. That is, average Americans shoulder the burden of funding the government. Consequently, the massive loss in jobs means a huge decrease in tax revenues, because the super-rich and corporations don’t really pay taxes..

Jamie AroosiApril 23, 2020COVID-19, coronavirus, Andrew Cuomo, Mitch McConnell, Stimulus, Bailout, Taxes, Stock MarketComment

Sample Chapter: The Dialectical Self

In these times of quarantine boredom, I thought I’d share a sample chapter from my recent book, The Dialectical Self: Kierkegaard, Marx, and the Making of the Modern Subject (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). Penn Press is currently having a 40% off Spring sale with promo code SPRING20-FM.

American (State Of) Exceptionalism: Spanish Translation

I’m extremely grateful (and flattered) that Anna Fioravanti from the Biblioteca Søren Kierkegaard in Argentina has decided to translate another piece of mine into Spanish.

Con su decisión de mantener abiertas las urnas de Wisconsin, ahora podemos agregar a la Corte Suprema a la lista de políticos y funcionarios del gobierno que literalmente han matado personas durante esta crisis. Es una lista larga y bipartidista, que incluye al alcalde de Nueva York que actuó demasiado tarde, al gobernador de Nueva York, que también actuó demasiado tarde, y que ha aprovechado este momento para hacer recortes masivos de atención médica y derogar las reformas de la fianza (esto último ayudará transformar las cárceles de Nueva York en campos de exterminio). Y a esta lista también podríamos agregar a Joe Biden, quien alentó a los votantes a ir a las urnas en Wisconsin, tal como lo hizo de manera similar hace unas semanas en Florida, Illinois y Arizona.

En estos días, sería difícil encontrar un político que no tuviera sangre en sus manos. Y si bien cada uno afirmará que estos son días en que se deben tomar decisiones difíciles, y cuando no hay buenas decisiones, esto es una mentira.

Jamie AroosiApril 9, 2020Spanish, COVID-19, coronavirus, Joe Biden, Supreme CourtComment

American (State Of) Exceptionalism

With their decision to keep the Wisconsin polls open, we can now add the Supreme Court to the list of politicians and government officials who have literally killed people during this crisis. It's a long and bipartisan list, including NYC's mayor who acted much too late, New York's Governor, who also acted much too late, and who has taken this moment to make massive healthcare cuts and to repeal bail reforms (the latter of which will help transform New York's prisons into death camps). And to this list we could also add Joe Biden, who encouraged voters to go the polls in Wisconsin, just as he similarly encouraged them a few weeks ago in Florida, Illinois, and Arizona.

These days, it would be hard to find a politician who didn't have blood on their hands. And while they’ll each claim that these are days when difficult decisions have to be made, and when there are no good decisions, this is a lie.

Class Consciousness in the Time of COVID-19

Not that many of us need a reminder about American inequality, but a recent Axios-Ipsos survey found that: "Americans with less education and lower incomes [are] far more likely either to have to keep showing up at their workplaces — putting themselves at greater daily risk of infection — or more likely to have seen their work dry up." However, what is interesting is that the survey also found that: "Ironically, those with the most resources and the least exposure are significantly more likely to say their emotional health is taking a hit."

Jamie AroosiApril 1, 2020COVID-19, Class Consciousness, Sympathy, SufferingComment

Hope in the time of COVID-19

There is a meme circulating on the interweb within boomer and conservative circles that claims that the "survival rate" of the coronavirus is 98.2% but that you don't see this "good news" anywhere in the mainstream media. In fact, in a New York magazine article with a Waffle House employee who had survived an extreme case of coronavirus that had required hospitalization, he mentioned these same figures as part of his argument that the lock down might be worse than the disease. And this from someone who almost died from coronavirus, but who now just wants to go out to grab a beer.

In the case of the person who shared this meme on my Facebook page, I pointed out that simple math indicates that this death rate translates into 6 million American deaths. (As a comparison, this dwarfs the number of American deaths from all American military conflicts combined, beginning with the Revolutionary War and including all present conflicts).

Jamie AroosiMarch 26, 2020COVID-19, coronavirus, Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto, Hope, Despair, CapitalismComment

El Lujo de la Moderación Política (The Luxury of Political Moderation)

A few months back, I had an article on Søren Kierkegaard and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. published in The New York Times.. You can find it here. However, I’m extremely grateful (and flattered) that Anna Fioravanti from the Biblioteca Søren Kierkegaard in Argentina liked the article so much that she decided to translate it into Spanish. So, for any Spanish speakers out there, I hope you enjoy “El Lujo de la Moderación Política” (The Luxury of Political Moderation) courtesy of Anna Fioravanti, to whom I remain extremely grateful. Both the link and the full-text follow.

Jamie AroosiFebruary 4, 2020Søren Kierkegaard, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Moderation, Spanish, FaithComment

The Luxury of Political Moderation

I recently had an editorial published with The New York Times. You can find the original here or read the full-text that follows.

Jamie AroosiOctober 30, 2019Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Søren Kierkegaard, Moderation, Moral Imagination, Faith, LoveComment

What’s In a Laugh?

It’s been interesting to see the critical praise for Parasite and the critical condemnation for Joker given that they’re basically the same film. The main point of each film, as Joaquin Phoenix explicitly states in Joker, is that "you get what you deserve." However, the main difference between these films is that Joker begins as a tragedy and ends as a comedy while Parasite begins as a comedy and ends as a tragedy. Consequently, the shared point of these films gets expressed as a moral in Parasite but a punchline in Joker.

And I can't help but wonder if this explains the difference in critical reception.

Jamie AroosiOctober 24, 2019Joker, Parasite, Laughter, Austerity, Liberation, Joaquin Phoenix, FilmComment

2019 and the End of Climate Change Denial: Or, How the Climate Proved Marx Right

Whenever anyone makes a connection between climate change and a particular weather event, there is inevitably a pedant who finds a different example that seemingly disproves it. Heatwave in Europe? But it was a colder than usual winter in Canada. Flooding in the Midwest? But it was drier than usual in California. Drought in the Southwest? But there was higher than average rainfall in the Northeast. And so on and so on and so on.

To anyone who even slightly follows climate change science, all of these events are actually symptomatic of the underlying process of human caused climate change. Climate change not only means that global average temperatures are increasing, but also that weather is becoming more erratic and intense. However, this is true at the global level, and not necessarily true for every particular location at every particular time. Consequently, some places might sometimes experience normal weather or even more pleasant weather, even if, when we aggregate all the data at the global level, this isn’t at all the case.

As for the pedant, they generally rely on a different type of evidence than do climate scientists. Rather than the global data on which climate scientists rely, the pedant draws on local anecdotal evidence instead, and then uses these anecdote about particular locations in order to deny patterns that we see in the broader data. In other words, they find the exception to the rule (the place it happened to be colder this year), and then argue that the exception disproves the rule (that average global temperatures increased). It’s a faulty form of argument, but a common one nonetheless.

However, if we examine these two forms of argument in this way, I think we miss the point.

Jamie AroosiAugust 23, 2019Climate Change, Karl Marx, Climate Change Denial, GenderComment