Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Critique.
Phase 1: The Ultimate Disconnection Protocol
The modern world is going through something that experts can't quite explain. What they call a "mental health crisis" or "failing to fit into society" is actually the spark of something much deeper. It is the exact moment when you begin to see the cracks in the sky of this cardboard reality.
By Lorena Alonso5 days ago in Critique
Confession of a Filmmaker
I am sitting in the dark of my own home, trapped between two glowing monuments. To my left, the cool light of my workstation—where I process reviews, answer emails, and earn my living. To my right, another monitor, flickering with the latest offering from a streaming giant. My head has learned a precise gymnastics; I call it the "Geometry of Attention." It's a calculated dance that allows me to track a dialogue-heavy drama on one screen while editing on the other.
By Feliks Karić5 days ago in Critique
Mapping vs Listing
Much of what gets labeled as rambling is actually a mismatch between how ideas are structured internally and how they are expected to be presented externally. Many environments reward listing, where ideas are arranged in clean sequences, bullet points, or linear arguments that move from premise to conclusion in a predictable order. This structure works well for certain kinds of reasoning, particularly when problems are discrete and conclusions are already known. It does not work as well for reasoning that depends on relationships, causality, or pattern recognition across multiple domains. When relational thinkers speak, they are often navigating a different internal structure altogether, and that difference is frequently misunderstood.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast6 days ago in Critique
Pharrell Williams-Affiliated Hotel Project Faces $150 Million Foreclosure Fight In Miami
That Miami getaway that Pharrell talks about in his song may not be fully financed. He has poured time and money into the project. He’s been able find extraordinary success as a rapper/singer/producer making according to estimates a quarter of a billion dollars in the process.
By Skyler Saunders6 days ago in Critique
VEDAS, UPANISHADS AND WESTERN PHILOSOPHY - ALEXIS KARPOUZOS
The Encounter of East and West as a Philosophical Problem The encounter between Indian and Western philosophy is one of the most fascinating yet most perilous undertakings in the history of philosophy. Fascinating because the two traditions — independently developed in different historical and cultural contexts — display surprising convergences that cannot be interpreted as accidental: they seem to touch something common in the deeper structure of human thought and experience. Perilous because superficial similarity can mislead: different concepts bearing similar names, different practices aimed at analogous ends, different world-views articulated through comparable conceptual schemas. Alexis Karpouzos stands in this encounter in a particular way: he neither seeks synthesis nor establishes opposition — he moves diagonally, drawing from both traditions without belonging exclusively to either, recognising in each a fragmentary wholeness of the Wandering Truth. The analysis that follows is not a historical-philosophical survey — it is an analysis in tension: each tradition is placed in full dialogue with the other two, and the convergences and divergences reveal different aspects of the same foundational philosophical question.
By alexis karpouzos6 days ago in Critique
Chingiz Aitmatov, My Poplar in a Red Scarf
This is a book I’ve finished reading now for the second time, because I remembered how good it was. There are many spoilers here, so you can stop reading now if you’d like. I’ve swallowed the book whole today and read 107 pages of it (it’s a small book). It’s a story about Ilias, a truck driver from Tian Shen in Kyrgyzstan that tells his story to a young journalist. It’s a story about tragedy and beauty, love and heartache. Ilias meets for the first time with Asel, a young woman, in her aiyl (a kyrgyzic village).
By Maya Or Tzur8 days ago in Critique
Cracks in the Kingdom
In the Children’s Fable the Tortoise and the Hare, the Hare is known for his jack rabbit starts and stops, his frantic approach, his unsustainable energy. We learn from the tortoise that slow and steady wins the race. Similarly, the global political and economic theater has been dominated by the frantic energy of the Hare. We have been told that speed is synonymous with success, that "jackrabbit starts" in innovation and market deregulation are the only way to outrun poverty and stagnation. But as the ecological and social architecture of our system is cracking, we are witnessing a "Great Unmasking." The facade of the infinite sprint is collapsing, revealing a system with unsustainable DNA. The DNA of capitalism is programmed for its own exhaustion. We have ignored the ancient wisdom of the children’s fable, forgetting that the Hare’s velocity was never a sign of strength, but a symptom of a volatile internal loop that prioritizes the burst over the journey.
By Susan Eileen 10 days ago in Critique
Forbidden Fruits Review: A Hilarious Toxic Cult of Feminist Witches
Forbidden Fruits, directed by Meredith Alloway, is a vibrant and audacious debut that blends horror and comedy within the context of a modern-day mall culture. The film, which draws inspiration from Lily Houghton’s play Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die, introduces audiences to a coven of young women who navigate the complexities of friendship and rivalry while engaging in witchcraft rituals.
By Ninfa Galeano11 days ago in Critique
Falling Between Every System
Modern social systems are often described as safety nets. Employment law protects workers. Healthcare programs provide treatment. Disability benefits replace lost income. Unemployment insurance bridges job loss. Each system is presented as a safeguard designed to catch people when life disrupts their ability to function normally. Yet for many people living with disability, chronic illness, or injury, the lived experience is the opposite. Rather than forming a net, these systems stack vertically, each with its own eligibility rules, thresholds, and assumptions. Instead of catching the fall, they create gaps. People do not slip through because they failed to try. They fall because the systems were never designed to align.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast11 days ago in Critique
The Road by Cormac McCarthy: . Top Story - March 2026.
"If he is not the word of God, God never spoke." It's a line spoken by The Man, unnamed, early on in the 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. It's this line, elegiac and moving, infused with despair and hope, that informs you, you're not reading something you'll easily forget.
By Adam Diehl13 days ago in Critique
