GOOD STRATEGY REBELLION

Tag: mental-health

  • The Crisis of Honour in Global Governance – Book Review

    The Crisis of Honour in Global Governance – Book Review

    A Plague On All of Their Houses

    THE END OF HONOUR: FROM ABSURDITY TO GLOBAL THUGGERY

    By Virginia Stephens, Madrid, 4th March 2026

    History, as Paul Kennedy observed in the pages that mapped the rise and fall of the great powers, does not announce its turning points with fanfare. It discloses them, reluctantly, through the accumulated weight of institutional decay, strategic overreach, and, most damningly, the erosion of the codes of conduct that once constrained even the most ruthless of statecraft. Martyn Jones, in this sprawling, ferocious, and occasionally magnificent polemic, has written something that Kennedy’s tradition demands we take seriously: a diagnosis of civilisational decline rooted not in balance-of-payments deficits or military overextension alone, but in the collapse of honour as an operational principle of governance.

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  • The Decline of Honour in Global Politics – Book Review

    The Decline of Honour in Global Politics – Book Review

    A Plague On All of Their Houses

    By Rebecca Kennedy, The Observer, Chelsea, Wednesday 4th March 2026

    The End of Honour: From Absurdity to Global Thuggery By Martyn Jones (martyn.es, 2025)

    In the grand sweep of history, as Paul Kennedy might observe, empires rise and fall not merely through the clash of arms or the ebb of economic tides, but through the erosion of moral sinews that bind societies and their leaders. Martyn Jones’s The End of Honour echoes this Kennedy-esque thesis, charting the precipitous decline of integrity in global politics from the unipolar illusions of the post-Cold War era to the brazen thuggery of contemporary strongmen. Written over a quarter-century, this sprawling polemic, part historical autopsy, part diplomatic jeremiad, dissects how the United States, once the self-anointed guardian of liberal order, has devolved into a “basket case” of strategic incoherence, abetted by neoliberal hubris and neoconservative adventurism. Jones, a data strategist turned contrarian commentator, draws on a lifetime of observation, from Welsh nationalism to Spanish socialism, to argue that honour’s demise has unleashed a world of “global thuggery,” where power is wielded not with restraint but as a blunt instrument of self-interest.

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  • Global Thuggery and the Erosion of Democracy Explained – Book Review

    Global Thuggery and the Erosion of Democracy Explained – Book Review

    A Plague On All of Their Houses

    By Rebecca Kennedy, The Charmed World Literary Supplement, Madrid, Wednesday 4th March 2026

    In his latest work, The End of Honour: From Absurdity to Global Thuggery, Martyn Jones presents a searing, non-linear “collage of collapse” that chronicles the steady erosion of political integrity and the rise of a “surrealist theatre” in global governance. Drawing on a quarter-century of observation, Jones argues that the democratic institutions we once revered as “pillars of integrity” have been hollowed out, replaced by a “theology of managerialism” and a “moronic embrace of the void”.

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  • BOOK REVIEW: Good vs Bad Leadership: Key Insights

    BOOK REVIEW: Good vs Bad Leadership: Key Insights

    Good Leader / Bad Leader – Martyn Jones

    By Stephanie Charming, Madrid, Tuesday 3rd March 2026

    Leadership

    In the annals of leadership literature, few works pierce the fog of modern managerial sophistry with the precision of a well-aimed bayonet charge. Martyn Jones’s Good Leader/Bad Leader: The Difference and Why It Matters stands as a clarion call to arms, a treatise that dissects the anatomy of command with the surgical acuity of Sun Tzu and the unflinching moral rigour of Marcus Aurelius. As a veteran strategist in the digital trenches, once hailed as one of the world’s top database minds, Jones draws not from ivory-tower abstractions but from the bloodied fields of corporate and public service battles. His book is no mere manual; it is a manifesto for the embattled leader, a compass for navigating the treacherous terrains of human ambition and institutional decay.

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  • BOOK REVIEW: Martyn Jones on Leadership Integrity

    BOOK REVIEW: Martyn Jones on Leadership Integrity

    Good Leader / Bad Leader – Martyn Jones

    By Stephanie Charming, Madrid, Tuesday 3rd March 2026

    Leadership

    In Good Leader/Bad Leader: The difference and why it matters, Martyn Jones sets himself an unfashionable task. At a time when leadership literature is awash with nuance, frameworks and neurobiological footnotes, he returns to first principles: good is good; bad is bad. And the distinction, he insists, is neither academic nor optional.

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  • The Perpetual Victim: How Professional Martyrdom Became the Most Lucrative Career on Earth

    The Perpetual Victim: How Professional Martyrdom Became the Most Lucrative Career on Earth

    Sir Afilonius Rex

    United Nations, New York, USA. 10th December 2025

    Here’s a brutal, no-holds-barred blog post from Sir Afilonius Rex, titled “The Perpetual Victim: How Professional Martyrdom Became the Most Lucrative Career on Earth”

    Intro Before the Outro

    At 3.17 a.m. I published a short, unsparing blog post. It argues that victimhood has been quietly professionalised into the highest-return occupation of our age. This occupation is tax-efficient, prestige-laden, and entirely unregulated. The returns are eye-watering. You can create a Substack and give a few tearful keynotes at $75,000 each. Add an NGO advisory seat at a quarter-million a year, and you can clear eight figures without ever producing anything. All you need is carefully calibrated distress. The raw material – historical or borrowed suffering – is free, non-depletable, and impossible to audit. There are three leading operators. The Hereditary Victim sees trauma as a trust fund. The Borrowed Victim deals with suffering leased by the aesthetically oppressed. The State-Level Victim acts like a sovereign wealth fund with an air force. The business model has one iron law: the grievance must never be resolved, or the revenue dies. Hence the goalposts are not moved; they are towed into the sea at dead of night. In the victimhood Olympics, gold medals are cast from everyone else’s corpses. That is the entire thesis. The rest is accounting.

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  • The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health Issues

    The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health Issues

    Ana-Celina Alba de Borbon

    Madrid, 7th November 2025

    The question: Does social media serve to surface mental health issues?

    The answer: Yes!

    Yes, social media serves to surface mental health issues, both by exposing underlying problems that might otherwise stay hidden and by amplifying or even creating new ones.

    Here’s a breakdown with evidence from research and real-world patterns:

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  • The Awkward Squad: Questioning Conventional Wisdom

    The Awkward Squad: Questioning Conventional Wisdom

    Full-Private Number-One in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of life was Sloppy, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to the Colours.

    Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

    I am a sceptic, part of the awkward squad of troublemakers.

    • The awkward squad consists of people who ask questions and who won’t stop asking until they arrive at the crux of the matter.
    • The awkward squad won’t take bullshit for an answer.
    • The awkward squad are unquestioningly not pre-programmed to follow specific paths.
    • The awkward squad will speak truth to power.
    • The awkward squad will question everything.

    Such as, “What the hell is that all about?”

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