What Is Peace, Really?
Europe says it wants peace. But peace has become a brand — not a practice. A word used to mask fear, project virtue, or justify silence.
I remember a line from an old song, rasped out by Thåström of Imperiet in the 1980s: “Är det verkligen fred vi vill ha — till varje tänkbart pris?”
Is it really peace we want — at any price?
It wasn’t just a lyric. It was a warning. Continue reading
The Lost Boys of Europe
Europe is looking outward for threats. It prepares for war. It builds fences. It urges citizens to stockpile survival kits. It warns of invasion and destabilisation. But the real imbalance is happening within.
There is a generation of young men in Europe — native, migrant, and everything in between — who are angry, aimless, and unheard. They are not forming political parties. They are not writing manifestos. They are burning cars, brawling in the streets, getting radicalised online or falling into silence. And the truth no one wants to face is this:
They don’t know who they are. Continue reading
The Labelling Paradox: How Societal Power Dynamics Create Deviance
Deviance is rule breaking. It is not enough to break a rule or a norm to be deviant, you also have to be named a deviant. Society’s reaction to deviance makes a person deviant, not the act itself. Someone has to decide that the act is deviant and if others agree with the label, a deviant has been made and a deviant act named. It’s usually someone from a class with more power who does the labelling.
Labelling is always about power. And it’s not just about rich and poor, it’s also good-looking and ugly, slim and fat, old and young, educated and uneducated and the list goes on. Labelling asserts power. Many people try to take back power by using the labels in a positive way and it has had some effect, for example, queer or slut or differently abled. Continue reading
AGEING + SEXUALITY = A LOVE STORY
OLD AGE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A SEXLESS DESTINATION
Yeats said Ireland “is no country for old men” and he was only 60 when he felt neglected.
Ireland has changed a lot, but old age is still a sexless place and ageism is an acceptable practice. It’s time to write a new story about old age, this time we must include sexuality and let’s make it a love story.
Our ageing population is often talked about as a drain on public resources, instead of critiquing how we as a society are organised and divided according to age. The majority of older adults are far from frail, lonely and vulnerable, but the media still insist on stereotypical representation. Continue reading
Involution Labs 