Category: Long-Form Essays
Essays typically exceeding 1500 words previously published across various publications on Medium and Substack.
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Aidan Vanhoof 5 min read Jul 13, 2025 We walked through the food bank and into the main room : a small, gray cafeteria, with cement floors and tables decorated with colorful place mats and cheap plastic tablecloths. It was a tad chaotic as people came and went through the garage that led to the front.…
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Aidan Vanhoof 13 min read Jul 8, 2025 Since this essay is rather long, I think it’s important that I state my thesis early on: Marxist materialism, while on paper quite practical, fails to bring about the most effective solution to capitalism by reducing both human consciousness and class-struggle to material conditions; thus, our understanding…
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How American hegemony hijacks semiotics Aidan Vanhoof 8 min read Jun 29, 2025 Tribalism is an old, seemingly inevitable fact of American life. Everyone has opinions, none appear compatible, and the American political system remains a wreck; one which the rest of the world gawks at like a crowd watching a public execution. But this…
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Why achievement is existentially disturbing even for those who have achieved: a psychoanalytic perspective on the division of labor Aidan Vanhoof 8 min read Jun 21, 2025 I’m young, naive, a little bit optimistic. The world, as my older friends and coworkers have told me, hasn’t crushed me into a pulp. I’m glad, and I…
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Aidan Vanhoof 7 min read Jun 13, 2025 Recently, I’ve been spending some time thinking about my future, as any 19-year-old may. Not only college or my future career in journalism: what’s fascinated me has been my retirement. That point in life when working becomes undesirable, when to labor would bring me little meaning, and…
Aidan Vanhoof 