With globalization and the EU, local and regional government in member states have experienced dramatic changes in their operation, responsibilities and organizations. Loughlin presents an overview of the theory and practice of subnational government in France and a detailed examination of the outcomes.
An aphoristic philosophy project by John O'Loughlin deriving from a collection of weblogs originally hosted by Helium.com which have since been extensively revised and reformatted for both eScroll and, as here, eBook publication in the interests of enhanced understanding through a more uniformly stylistic and chronological presentation.
This collection of short prose puts John O'Loughlin's ideological philosophy of Social Transcendentalism (as explained in the book by the same title) through a literary prism, as we explore a variety of interrelated themes from a loosely fictional standpoint. In fact politics, whether or not associated with a correlative mode of sexuality (as in his novella entitled 'The Politics of Sexuality'), also figures quite prominently here, though usually in connection with Social Transcendentalism, which is both political and, as the term suggests, more than political. Those especially interested in philosophy will find the last three pieces in this collection particularly intriguing, since they were conceived in a loosely aphoristic vein, the final one being a kind of oblique tribute to and even ironic parody of Nietzsche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'.
A deeply philosohical project which explores the varying relationships between atoms and pseudo-atoms from opposite class and gender standpoints and with a view to exposing the extents to which any given atomic and/or pseudo-atomic position can be subverted from contrary class and gender positions depending on which class or gender is 'calling the shots' in any given age. This is simply the 'apotheosis' of this author's quest for philosophical perfection beyond which it would be virtually impossible to go, which is why this is not only John O'Loughlin's best book, but his last one too. - A Centretruths Editorial
A collection of revised and reformatted philosophical weblogs by John O'Loughlin, who has extended his philosophy beyond material contained in Insane But Not Mad, also dating from 2011, if with a dash of personal self-deprecation. – A Centretruths Editorial
PRIVATE OBSERVATIONS is not quite as private as it first appears to be, since it is a fully-fledged example of John O'Loughlin's cyclic philosophy at its best, and therefore extends the ideological philosophy of Social Transcendentalism into new realms of speculative and ontological endeavour that continue to do maximum justice to metaphysics, whatever personal observations to the contrary may suggest.
Mr O'Loughlin's so-called BOOK OF BELIEFS is a record of where his head was at in 1996 or thereabouts, and is therefore anything but a definitive account of his intellectual progress towards a kind of consummate metaphysical truth. Nevertheless, it's still pretty evolved, and one of its best aspects, in our retrospective view, is the way in which it takes space, time, mass, and volume (the latter two factors already more than most philosophers know or care anything about)and establishes a continuum between space and time on the one hand, and volume and mass on the other, in such fashion that things either axially rise or fall between opposite types of space, time, volume, and mass. Check it out for yourself, and go beyond the conventional thinking of academics.
From Satan to Saturn' has the distinction of being the first of John O'Loughlin's cyclical works of aphoristic philosophy (superphilosophy and/or theosophy); that is, a volume in which numbered aphorisms are recycled over and over as the text centripetally advances through several spirals in an ascending momentum that takes it to new heights of truthful or metaphysical insight and certitude, heights that will be overhauled in due textural course as the struggle for philosophical verity (or theosophical perfection) continues with what could be called a badgeful - as opposed to ringful - vengeance.
When an experienced magazine correspondent suddenly becomes ill before he can carry out his assignment, a young and comparatively inexperienced colleague is deputized to interview world-famous composer Howard Tonks in his stead, and things don't work out as planned for either of them! In fact, they go from bad to worse in ways which put not only the assignment, but the reputation of the magazine in serious jeopardy, threatening the livelihoods of both correspondents. Can a resolution to the dilemma in which the magazine subsequently finds itself be found, or will it be obliged to compensate the aggrieved party in some financially or socially compromising way? The answer lies within.
OPUS POSTSCRIPTUM differs from John O'Loughlin's official written oeuvre in that it is comprised of revised and reformatted weblogs from the author's site at spweblog.com and is therefore supplementary to the works which came to a head with 'The Yang and Anti-Yin Quartet' (2005). Most of the essay-like supernotes of the two books that constitute this estimable e-book were written during 2005-6, and are therefore amongst Mr O'Loughlin's most up-to-date projects, supplementing his ideological approach to philosophy with fresh ideas and new logical permutations.
THE LAST JUDGEMENT advances the ideological philosophy of Social Transcendentalism by highlighting the extent to which gender conditions axial divergence and the relativity of both moral and social values in such fashion that nothing can be definitively understood - and therefore judged - without a grasp of these axial fundamentals, which put civilization - and Western traditions not least of all - at loggerheads.
Following on from John O'Loughlin's previous title So There, this work also takes the form of a mixture of aphorisms and maxims, or brief discursive observations on a variety of subjects of interest or concern to the author, coupled to numbered sequences of systematically-structured conclusions about salient aspects of the overall philosophy which, in this book, succeed those parts (one and three) specifically given to the aphoristic material, as though to sum-up or clarify, on a more philosophically intensive basis, what had been more discursively observed. Of course, there is more to it than that, and the author would be lying if he didn't also add that this title both refines upon and extends beyond some of the observations and conclusions of the previous one, thereby in a sense bringing this phase of his philosophy to what he holds to be an ideological peak, beyond which he has no intention of going, since little or no progress could, so far as he is concerned, be made short of one's adopting the philosophical equivalent of wings and flying off into space. Therefore Mr O'Loughlin believes he has reached if not the end then almost certainly the highest summit so far of his intellectual journey, summing up, in a nutshell, what it has taken him the best part of four decades to arrive at, experience coupled to observation leading to truly conclusive results, the credibility of which it would be difficult if not impossible to logically deny. - A Centretruths Editorial
NO MAN-OEUVRE (On the Highway of Truth) is a further example of John O'Loughlin's aphoristic philosophy in full Social Transcendentalist flight towards an ideological and/or ontological summit, and the title aptly puns the connection between godliness and righteousness.
As with John O'Loughlin's previous title, Keys to the Kingdom of Truth, this new work tends to utilize both aphorisms discursively and maxims sequentially in a kind of compromise between contrasting approaches to his writing, the one more literary and the other more technical, with some material of an autobiographical nature included for good measure, as also in an attempt to clarify his situation as a self-styled intellectual whose 'journey' to a well-nigh definitive realization of his thinking did not happen overnight or without considerable effort both personally and vis-a-vis whatever obstacles domestic and/or environmental circumstances may have thrown in his way. Nevertheless, the intellectual adventure somehow continued, and one is relieved to say it has eventually attained to something of a culmination beyond which further progress in this regard would be virtually impossible, given the conclusive nature of, in particular, so many of the maxims, whose sequentially comprehensive structures matured only gradually but nonetheless cumulatively to a point from which it should be possible for their author to leave off journeying, having reached his adventure's end in what must surely be the most logically definitive philosophy imaginable, if not – dare one say it? - ever, the form of which – if there is such a thing – follows from the content and not vice versa, which makes, so Mr O'Loughlin would contend, for a certain contentment with the overall results.
John O'Loughlin's first novel, written during the summer of 1976, is a largely autobiographical account of three days in the life of a clerk-turning-writer Michael Savage, whose disillusionment with the drudgery of office work has led him to quit his clerical job in London's West End in order to dedicate himself to a literary career ... come what may. In this respect Savage is a sort of Henry Miller, who doesn't believe in doing things by half-measures and consequently to him there is no sense in remaining a clerk when one has an imperative desire to become a writer and thus effectively 'change worlds'. For him it is a make-or-break situation, all the more poignant for its unfolding against a background of indifference or hostility from colleagues and relatives alike! Of all this author's novels, 'Changing Worlds' is by far the most subjective, with long passages of interior monologue which often overlap, to ironic effect, with conversational or observational settings; though he has taken extra care to differentiate reflection from conversation by utilizing single quotes in the one context and double quotes in the other - a stratagem which, though unorthodox, has probably done more than anything to condition his preference, contrary to contemporary norms, for double quotes in relation to conversational passages virtually right the way through his fictional oeuvre. However that may be, it was probably the degree of this novel's subjectivity, combined with its revolutionary technique, that alienated most publishers (apart from 'vanity press' ones) when he first attempted to have it published, back in the late 1970s, and to this day he is proud of the fact that he was able to subvert literary objectivity to such a radical extent that ... the result is more philosophic than fictional, thus heralding his true destiny in the more unequivocally philosophical works to come!
The six philosophical essays included here, which vary in length and treatment of style, were written in the late-1970s by John O'Loughlin and reflect a non-Marxist concern with the influence of environment upon culture, not least in respect of literature, music, religion, and knowledge generally. Although the author is not anti-urban per se, he argues that certain types or degrees of urban civilization can be detrimental to spirituality, including the life of the soul, and THAT, believe it or not, was the basis of 'The Fall of Love', which is closer in conception to Spengler than to Marx, and goes some way towards explaining the underlying causes of contemporary materialism as an expression of secular values.
A Metaphysically-biased argument couched in the form of a journal that analyses the relationships between atoms and pseudo-atoms on a variety of levels, including the human, from their gender-dichotomous foundations right through to class interpretations of atomic and pseudo-atomic structures that underpin not only disciplinary but, so the author contends, ethnic differences within divergent approaches to civilization and its struggle against barbarism. Not only is this John O'Loughlin's most technically complex work to date, it is arguably also his most thematically compelling, since the arguments it propounds in favour of Metaphysics are so firmly grounded in philosophical logic ... that even the sceptical or otherwise cynical might well be convinced of their veracity.
EVALUATIONS AND REVALUATIONS, which is divided into two parts, each of which reflects one aspect of the overall title, is a compilation of aphoristic writings with strongly metaphysical and subatomic overtones such that take the ideological philosophy of Social Transcendentalism to a new level of analytical sophistication and synthetic penetration.
A PERFECT RESOLUTION corrects certain of what the author regards as the 'heathenistic' ('secular' in contemporary parlance) aberrations of its aphoristic predecessor, 'Stairway to Judgement', as it exposes the extent to which moral criteria are significantly dependent on the nature of the society of which they are a part, and of how this, in turn, is conditioned by gender factors which determine its axial direction and integrity, for better or for worse.
BEYOND TRUTH AND ILLUSION markedly contrasts with John O'Loughlin's first venture into philosophy back in 1977, 'Between Truth and Illusion', and does so to the extent of being more akin to the omega point of his philosophical oeuvre than to anything alpha-like at the beginning. Here he has finally answered his doubts and brought his quest to rest on the basis of a collection of revised and reformatted weblogs which have every right to be regarded as aphoristically metaphysical.
This book is the result of a research project carried out for the Committee of the Regions and analyses the 'state of play' of democratic practice at the subnational level in all of the European Member states. Its initial hypothesis was that liberal democracy is closely associated with the rise of the nation state in the 19th century. The nation state, however, has been significantly changing under the impact of various forces including globalization and regionalization, internal reforms of the public administration system such as privatization and deregulation, and the emergence of regions and local authorities as actors in their own rights. these changes pose challenges for the practice of democracy and, in particular, for its expression at the regional and local level. The book deals with the theoretical implications of these changes in terms of the changing nature of the state and new regionalism. However, one of the key findings is that there is no one uniform meaning of democracy across member states and there are variations even within a single state depending on whether the national or subnational levels are considered. Each country chapter gives the historical and philosophical background to the concept of democracy in each country. There is also an exposition of the institutional expression of democracy at the different levels. With regard to the practice of democracy at the subnational level, the role of pressure groups and policy networks is examined as well as the role of political parties. There is a survey of critiques of subnational democracy. Finally, there is a survey of innovative approaches to improving regional and local democracy through a variety of mechanisms and reforms as ways of responding to the challenge and opportunities facing it today
Continuing in the vein of the revolutionary transvaluations characteristic of both 'Occasional Maxims' (1994) and 'Maximum Occasions' (1994-5), this volume of aphoristic philosophy nevertheless returns us, in due cumulative fashion, to the cyclical style of writing adopted by John O'Loughlin in 'From Punishment to Grace' (1994), albeit with the addition of side titles to recurring numerals, and with a view to bringing to completion a task which really began several years ago ... when he boldly set-out on the long and difficult path that leads to Truth, or metaphysical knowledge. Little did he realize, at the time, that not only would he eventually get to the Truth (which, in any case, we maintain no-one had previously done to anything like the same philosophic extent), but ... actually overhaul it, in what is effectively a literary parallel to heaven.
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