America’s Strategic Assault on Art, Academia, and the Imagination That Sustains Peace Jan Oberg September 29, 2025 The United States once stood as a beacon of cultural audacity—a place where dissent could be beautiful, and beauty and innovation could challenge the present order of things. Its museums, universities, and artists helped inspire a worldwide imagination […]
On the invisible codes of culture that shape our worldviews long before memory or reason. Gordon DumoulinTFF Board member May 26, 2025 This analysis was initially published on the author’s “China21 Journal” which contains several analyses of related issues, China-Western relations and how to increase knowledge and mutual understanding. Last week, we picked up our […]
Photo © Jan Oberg 2018 Talk at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, September 2010 Johan Galtung 1930-2024 Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen It is a great honor to be on a panel with the Director of CPC-CC Foreign Affairs, the Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, the Editor-in-chief of China Daily, the Dean of the National Office of […]
Peter Peverelli November 22, 2024 This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making – “If You Want To Understand China.” Foreword, Introduction, Authors and Table of Content here. Gordon DumoulinEchoes Of Volatile And Delusive Memory: Challenging Historical Interpretations Introduction ”Should the West see China as a threat or as an opportunity, a […]
“War Collage – La Paix Quand?” © Jan Oberg 2024 Jan Øberg October 31, 2024 Throughout modern world history, great powers, empires and civilisations have succeeded each other. No one has stayed on top indefinitely – there is a birth, the new thing grows creatively and materially until it reaches a peak and perhaps begins […]
Making sense of China by snapshot is impossible without watching the film Gordon Dumoulin October 17, 2024 This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making – “If You Want To Understand China.” Foreword, Introduction, Authors and Table of Content here. Peter PeverelliEnemy or Mirror Image? ‘Scholars once thought secularisation is an irreversible […]
Daryl Guppy April 11, 2024 This article, first published by Pearls & Irritations on April 4, 2024, focuses on Australia but there is no reason that you could not insert any Western country in its place. Hannah Arendt’s BANALITY OF EVIL report on the Eichmann trial failed to adequately address a key question. How could […]
With the superego dissolved, there is no felt obligation to judge oneself in reference to any external or abstract standard. Narcissistic tendencies flourish. A similar psychology removes the requisite for experiencing shame. Michael Brenner* April 8, 2024 Is there now a moral void at the heart of Western societies? That question haunts us as governments in […]
Photo © Jan Oberg “Eclecticism” 2019 Johan Galtung 2015 February 29, 2024 A theory serves comprehension, prediction and identification of conditions for change. Seven such historical-cultural pointers will be indicated for China; using the West in general, and the USA in particular, for comparisons. The presentation draws on countless dialogues in China over 40 years, […]
“Mops And More” © Jan Oberg 2023 Jan Oberg October 20, 2023 I assume that most readers here know me as a peace and conflict researcher and as co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF. However, since 2009, I’ve also worked as an art photographer, done projects, and arranged […]