From civil rights to Reaganomics, the central role of the state has been challenged.
From civil rights to Reaganomics, the central role of the state has been challenged.

Things fall apart - Age of Fracture



It may seem counterintuitive to treat American politics and culture as zones of intellectual combat. To the outside observer - or, indeed, to its citizens - the United States appears to be a society in the grip of passions more often than ideas. Public life swings between moralistic surges of religious fervour and strikingly amoral displays of uninhibited ego. Philosophical debates about defining the good, the true, and the beautiful can be ignored; the highest values are wealth, power and fame. The most remarkable thing about the historian Richard Hofstadter's book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, as someone once said, is that he kept it to one volume.

But this is a caricature. The features are recognisable, though not proportional. American universities enjoy a global prominence among institutions of higher education; they are linked to the mass media and public-policy elites of the US by a thousand threads. (Sneering at "the ivory tower" always involves a certain obtuseness about academia's worldly role; it, too, commands its share of the country's stock of wealth, power, and fame.) The influence of scientific research on the nation's economy, and the globe's, is obvious. But debates within the social sciences and humanities also have consequences, for good or ill, within American society and well beyond it.

In Age of Fracture, Daniel T Rodgers surveys American intellectual life over the final decades of the 20th century with an eye to unravelling important strands of thought in various fields (philosophy, economics, sociology, cultural analysis, and historiography itself, among others). In some cases, the arguments are connected directly to disputes within the public sphere, where concepts may be turned into to sound bites - or projectiles, hurled between duelling pundits. Rodgers has a knack for characterising and assessing ideas without reducing them to their strictly polemical dimensions. But he also conveys the urgency and consequence of intellectual debate: the sense that it has stakes.

Yet all of the stakes may not be visible to participants in a debate at any given time. When serious thinking takes place in what Rodgers calls "the diverse and intellectually compartmentalised societies of modern times", it tends to be "piecemeal, context-driven, occasional, and… instrumental". Hence the value of historical writing that casts a wide net - gathering up the ideas developing in a number of disciplines, the arguments being made in a variety of ideological camps. Trends that would not be visible up close can be seen from a distance. And doing so while also covering decades of intellectual life will tend to find still deeper patterns, unfolding at a pace that may seem glacial.

But perhaps that ice-age image is misleading. As Rodgers tells the story, it is a mistake to think of Ronald Reagan as having presided over a new Cold War - at least within American culture, which by the 1980s had discarded the rigid modes of thinking that took shape in response to the challenges of Stalin and Khrushchev. Rodgers gives a sweeping but recognisable account of the intellectual style prevailing at midcentury: one in which the self was embedded in a society that was solid and cohesive, with institutions that reinforced one another's authority. "Society, power, and history pressed down on individual lives," he writes, "as inescapably dense and weighty presences."

Overthrowing this idea of order was the goal of all the upheavals generally lumped together as "the Sixties" - although even the counterculture tended to retain some notion of a powerful, massive "system" or "establishment" still inhibiting it. But a still deeper transformation began during the 1970s. The simultaneous increase in both unemployment and inflation ran against the received wisdom of Keynesian macroeconomics. The role of the state in regulating capitalism - something often taken for granted in the wake of the Great Depression - was ever more emphatically challenged by the idea that the market (and only the market) could generate optimally rational outcomes for the myriad economic transactions taking place among individuals.

This entailed more than a shift to free-market policies. It carried in its wake a whole series of arguments about decision-making and human interaction. The notion of "society" tended to dissolve into a flux of "detached … economic actors, free to choose and optimise … governed not by their common deliberative action but only by the impersonal laws of the market." The "dense and weighty presences" of history and society dissolve into so many operating expenses and opportunity costs. Everything solid melts into air.

Age of Fracture traces the spread of ideas about the logic and flexibility of the marketplace across various disciplines - and their triumph within American politics (not only among the Republicans, by any means) is obvious. But this is not the only vector in American intellectual life that Rodgers charts. The civil-rights and feminist movements that emerged in the 1960s had reason to think about the embedded injustices of social institutions and the need for solidarity in changing them. And steadily growing economic inequality raised questions about what (if anything) citizens owed to one another.

The chapters on these matters are full of well-turned accounts of the arguments that took shape during the final three decades of the 20th century. By the early years of the 21st, all of the basic positions had been staked out. But in each case Rodgers finds a kind of exhaustion taking hold well before that point. The possibility of joining forces with others across differences in background diminished as expressions of identity became the very essence of politics. And ideas about identity became ever more fluid. One came to hear of gender, for example, as "performative", which is certainly better than regarding anatomy as destiny, though hardly a substitute for laws requiring equal pay for equal work.

"Viewed by its acts of mind," Rodgers says, "the last quarter of the century was an era of disaggregation, a great age of fracture." It provided "fewer intellectual resources… for understanding the ways in which the past pressed its legacies on the present," and it became much harder to conceive or imagine "the webs of dependence and connection" holding society together. The situation cannot be blamed on the failures (intellectual or political or both) of either the American left or the right. Rodgers's point is that the ideas deployed by each side have usually been both symptoms and catalysts of disaggregation.

His book's fundamental gloominess is not exactly offset by Olympian gesture of calling down a plague on both houses. But as an American who grew up during exactly the period covered by it, I will say that Age of Fracture provides a frequently insightful narrative of recent public intellectual life in this country - and also some understanding of its precarious situation now.

The financial heart attack of 2008 put the free-market worldview into question for a time. But no strong alternative conception arose to take its place. The election of the first African-American president inspired a certain amount of talk about "post-racial" society, but this soon collapsed. And there is no serious discussion of how US culture will develop as it becomes ever more deeply linked to Latin America. The age of fracture that Rodgers chronicles is not yet over. One suspects it has barely even begun.

Scott McLemee is a recipient of the US National Book Critics Circle award for excellence in reviewing.

Best Academy: Ajax and Benfica

Best Agent: Jorge Mendes

Best Club : Liverpool   

 Best Coach: Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool)  

 Best Goalkeeper: Alisson Becker

 Best Men’s Player: Cristiano Ronaldo

 Best Partnership of the Year Award by SportBusiness: Manchester City and SAP

 Best Referee: Stephanie Frappart

Best Revelation Player: Joao Felix (Atletico Madrid and Portugal)

Best Sporting Director: Andrea Berta (Atletico Madrid)

Best Women's Player:  Lucy Bronze

Best Young Arab Player: Achraf Hakimi

 Kooora – Best Arab Club: Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia)

 Kooora – Best Arab Player: Abderrazak Hamdallah (Al-Nassr FC, Saudi Arabia)

 Player Career Award: Miralem Pjanic and Ryan Giggs

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Studying addiction

This month, Dubai Medical College launched the Middle East’s first master's programme in addiction science.

Together with the Erada Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation, the college offers a two-year master’s course as well as a one-year diploma in the same subject.

The move was announced earlier this year and is part of a new drive to combat drug abuse and increase the region’s capacity for treating drug addiction.

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

Cryopreservation: A timeline
  1. Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
  2. Ovarian tissue surgically removed
  3. Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
  4. Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
  5. Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
 
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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Other workplace saving schemes
  • The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
  • Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
  • National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
  • In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
  • Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

DMZ facts
  • The DMZ was created as a buffer after the 1950-53 Korean War.
  • It runs 248 kilometers across the Korean Peninsula and is 4km wide.
  • The zone is jointly overseen by the US-led United Nations Command and North Korea.
  • It is littered with an estimated 2 million mines, tank traps, razor wire fences and guard posts.
  • Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un met at a building in Panmunjom, where an armistice was signed to stop the Korean War.
  • Panmunjom is 52km north of the Korean capital Seoul and 147km south of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.
  • Former US president Bill Clinton visited Panmunjom in 1993, while Ronald Reagan visited the DMZ in 1983, George W. Bush in 2002 and Barack Obama visited a nearby military camp in 2012. 
  • Mr Trump planned to visit in November 2017, but heavy fog that prevented his helicopter from landing.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Paatal Lok season two

Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy 

Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong

Rating: 4.5/5

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4
China and the UAE agree comprehensive strategic partnership

China and the UAE forged even closer links between the two countries during the landmark state visit after finalising a ten-point agreement on a range of issues, from international affairs to the economy and trade and renewable energy.

1. Politics: The two countries agreed to support each other on issues of security and to work together on regional and international challenges. The nations also confirmed that the number of high-level state visits between China and the UAE will increase.

2. Economy: The UAE offers its full support to China's Belt and Road Initiative, which will combine a land 'economic belt" and a "maritime silk road" that will link China with the Arabian Gulf as well as Southeast, South and Central China, North Africa and, eventually, Europe. 

3. Business and innovation: The two nations are committed to exploring new partnerships in sectors such as Artificial Intelligence, energy, the aviation and transport industries and have vowed to build economic co-operation through the UAE-China Business Committee.

4. Education, science and technology: The Partnership Programme between Arab countries in Science and Technology will encourage young Emirati scientists to conduct research in China, while the nations will work together on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, renewable energy and space projects. 

5. Renewable energy and water: The two countries will partner to develop renewable energy schemes and work to reduce climate change. The nations have also reiterated their support for the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency.

6. Oil and gas: The UAE and China will work in partnership in the crude oil trade and the exploration and development of oil and natural gas resources.

7. Military and law enforcement and security fields: Joint training will take place between the Chinese and UAE armed forces, while the two nations will step up efforts to combat terrorism and organised crime. 

8. Culture and humanitarian issues: Joint cultural projects will be developed and partnerships will be cultivated on the preservation of heritage, contemporary art and tourism. 

9. Movement between countries: China and the UAE made clear their intent to encourage travel between the countries through a wide-ranging visa waiver agreement.

10. Implementing the strategic partnership: The Intergovernmental Co-operation Committee, established last year, will be used to ensure the objectives of the partnership are implemented.

 

 

Fixtures (all in UAE time)

Friday

Everton v Burnley 11pm

Saturday

Bournemouth v Tottenham Hotspur 3.30pm

West Ham United v Southampton 6pm

Wolves v Fulham 6pm

Cardiff City v Crystal Palace 8.30pm

Newcastle United v Liverpool 10.45pm

Sunday

Chelsea v Watford 5pm

Huddersfield v Manchester United 5pm

Arsenal v Brighton 7.30pm

Monday

Manchester City v Leicester City 11pm

 

Living in...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.