In this essay, Mark McConaghy asks the question: what is happiness in this day and age of bourgeois normalcy? Is being happy possible? And should it be considered the very point of existence itself? The new semester is upon us and the old familiar rhythms have returned. For those readers of ours who have worked […]
Read more "On Happiness"By Mark McConaghy What is a monumental space? Any built environment that bespeaks grandeur, openness, solemnity. These are spaces that make you feel your own individual insignificance in the grand historical scheme of things, and yet that oddly provide a sense of comfort in that anonymity, making you happy to get lost in their epic […]
Read more "On Monumental Spaces"By Mark McConaghy In part one of this series, I asked the question: why read literature in this day and age? What can literature actually do to better humanity? While intellectuals, professors, and graduate students may feel that an answer to such a question is readily apparent- literature Enlightens! Enthralls! Nurtures our Soul!- I have […]
Read more "Why Read Literature Part 2: We Still Need Scalpels"By Mark McConaghy For the last couple of years we have heard nothing but glowing news reports about Brazil’s rapid economic growth. This was South America’s answer to China- a regional dominant that was growing into a global economic powerhouse, replete with double digit GDP expansion and a sky rocketing demand for commodities of all […]
Read more "A Politics Without a Name"Before we all became riveted on the problem of terrorism over the last 2 weeks, I had planned to write about another story that garnered much national attention here in Canada but has, since Boston, faded from the headlines. While my fellow 14th floorer Sean Callaghan has done an admirable job working through the philosophical complexities […]
Read more "RBC’s Apology and the Limits of Capitalism"By Mark McConaghy Like many in North America and around the world last Friday, I was riveted by the manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers. I watched with surreal fascination as the entire city of Boston was locked down into a police state for an entire day. Two young men, pressure cooker bombs, guns, stolen cars, […]
Read more "There is No Batman: On Terrorism in Our Time"By Mark McConaghy Last week our nation was shocked by the suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons. The details of the story are so grim they remain difficult to summarize: at the age of 15 Parsons was allegedly sexually assaulted at a house party by 4 teenage boys in the small town of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. A […]
Read more "On Rehtaeh Parsons"Mark McConaghy breaks down what we know about the deal Cyprus struck to avoid fiscal collapse, and why it sets a very dangerous precedent for fiscal policy in the 21st century. Are we going to find ourselves in a world where even our personal bank accounts are not off limits from state power? A deal […]
Read more "The Age of the Bail In: Cyprus in Crisis 2"By Mark McConaghy At a time of acute crisis in the life of the Catholic Church, what are five things that it could do to make itself into a revitalized, socially progressive, and powerfully empathetic institution for the 21st century? 1. A Comparative Perspective In the mid 18th century, the power of the Manchu Qing […]
Read more "Five Things I Want From the New Pope"By Mark McConaghy Some of our most mundane activities- watching hockey, taking in an awards show- can reveal to us how ideology operates in our current society. Taking a moment to think about why we invest emotionally in certain things reveals a crucial problem that we must face as progressive intellectuals: the traditional understanding of […]
Read more "On What Being an Oiler Fan Teaches You About Ideology"
The 14th Floor 