It goes without saying that all mental illnesses are neurologically instantiated. But this says nothing about their causation.

The neoliberal policies implemented first by the Thatcher governments in the 1980s and continued by New Labour and the current coalition have resulted in a privatisation of stress.

Under neoliberal governance, workers have seen their wages stagnate and their working conditions and job security become more precarious.

If people dying as a consequence of the implementation of measures cannot count as evidence that the legislation has detrimental effects, what would?

While football embarrassingly exposes the excesses of capitalism, the Olympic sports have been used to propagate the neoliberal mantra that success is simply a matter of hard work.

There's always been a nasty strain of class prejudice ingrained in the condemnation of football's 'undeserving rich,' as if the working class is uniquely susceptible to being corrupted by money, and as if they deserve their wealth less than those born to it.

Footballers' 'lack of loyalty,' for instance, is not an indication of players' moral delinquency. Instead, the capacity to move on quickly without forming lasting attachments is a skill that the contemporary capitalist world inculcates and relies upon.

In terms of the film itself, there was nothing much very new about 'Star Wars.' 'Star Wars' was a trailblazer for the kind of monumentalist pastiche which has become standard in a homogeneous Hollywood blockbuster culture that, perhaps more than any other film, 'Star Wars' played a role in inventing.

The arrival of 'Star Wars' signalled the full absorption of the former counterculture into a new mainstream.

Star Wars' was a sell-out from the start, and that is just about the only remarkable thing about this depressingly mediocre franchise.

Now that we are used to globalisation it's hard to imagine a time when the countries behind the iron curtain were largely obscured from the western gaze. The Soviet bloc was a genuine mystery. Such was the dehumanisation of the Soviets that Sting could wonder in song if 'the Russians love their children too.'

No ideology better understands the need for enemies than neoconservatism, and when the cold war dramatically and unexpectedly ended, the way was prepared for the 'Arab threat' to emerge. 'True Lies,' the 1994 James Cameron comedy thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, duly served up the Arab villain Salim Abu Aziz.

The first 'Red Dawn' was made at a time when Hollywood didn't stint in its use of Russian stereotypes. Cold war capitalist ideology construed the Soviets as different for two reasons - not only did they belong to another political-economic system, they didn't seem to possess the same emotions that 'we' do.

The fact that the 1984 cold war film 'Red Dawn' has been remade is more than just another sign of Hollywood declining into pastiche and repetition. It shows that, in a moment of deep capitalist crisis, the Red Peril is back.

Capitalism is a set of rituals.

On the Junior Boys' 'When No-one Cares' beats are abandoned altogether, the track's 'endless night' lit only by the dying-star flares and stalactite-by-flashlight pulse of reverbed electronics.

I'm the world's greatest apologist for Brian De Palma but his version of Ellroy's 'The Black Dahlia' is a disaster.

Capitalism does not require us to hold a particular set of cognitive beliefs; it only requires that we act as if certain beliefs (about money, commodities etc) are true. The rituals are the beliefs, beliefs which, at the level of subjective self-description, may well be disavowed.

In particularly acute cases of depression, it is recognized that no verbal or therapeutic intervention will reach the patient. The only effective remedy is to do things, even though the patient will, at that time, believe that any act is pointless and meaningless.

A Scanner Darkly' is one of Dick's bleakest novels, and almost certainly his saddest.

The ruling ideology prefers to talk about individual ethics rather than the capitalist system.

In a world of niches, we are enchained by our own consumer preferences.

I have taught Philosophy, Religious Studies, English Literature, Cultural Studies, Writing and Publishing Studies, Critical Thinking.

While the emphasis on effects became a catastrophe for science fiction, it was a relief for the capitalist culture of which 'Star Wars' became a symbol. Late capitalism can't produce many new ideas any more, but it can reliably deliver technological upgrades. But 'Star Wars' didn't really belong to the science fiction genre any way.