Enjoying the view from Limbo
As much as our modern temperament is inclined to demand simple reductions of everything — simple reductions being the wisdom of the common man, suitable for an egalitarian age that has elevated commonness to an ideal — there is in truth no single question that defines or epitomizes philosophical investigation. Rather, the essential questions of the philosophic pursuit may be represented as manifestations...
We are born almost exclusively matter. Our aim is to become almost exclusively soul. This trajectory of nature, our teleology, though rarely perceived and barely understood by those few who do perceive it, must be the touchstone of all our self-understanding and all our judgments and choices. Today, however, men strive to maintain and perpetuate their most fully material condition, regarding the gradual...
Eric Idle, the Monty Python group member, has made headlines of late by openly chastising other comedians, most notably his old partner John Cleese, but now also Dave Chappelle, for crying “censorship” when in fact they are making tons of money saying whatever they want in various popular forums. That is, Idle has come down decisively on the progressive establishment side of the...
That the great qua great cannot be understood or reckoned with by the majority of men — or even by the great themselves insofar as their greatness remains, so to speak, inactive or latent — is quite easy to understand. There are norms of thought, feeling, and behavior, routines and conformities expected, or indeed demanded, by the times in which a man lives....
Recently, a serious student who has embarked with gusto on the path of philosophy mused, in an e-mail, about what it means, definitionally speaking, to “be who she is.” Let’s say this is a note for the future, in case I might lose myself someday. What if I lose myself and forget who I was? Read this: “From myself in the past (2022)...
From Day One of his mock-political career, Donald Trump has been a classic and self-evident example of the unprincipled sycophant who pretends to be strong by parroting in an authoritative voice whatever he perceives to be the feelings or preferences of the people whose love and admiration he so weakly and desperately craves. In other words, the danger of Trump, like all of...
All the populists and ersatz conservatives who continue to claim, in response to every disaster unfolding today, “This wouldn’t have happened on Trump’s watch,” should be held to account to explain why, if Trump’s watch was so brilliant, all of this is unfolding so precipitously and unstoppably in the immediate aftermath of that wonderful period of the Trump presidency. Far more accurate and...
A simple question: Vladimir Putin, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tulsi Gabbard, Candace Owens, Donald Trump, Jordan Peterson, Russell Brand, Nick Fuentes, Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua, Syria — does this list embody the alliance for peace and freedom today? If it does, then I oppose peace and freedom with every fiber of my being, and wish to go to my grave as the...
Donald Trump has announced that he is running for president in 2024, because Americans just don’t realize how much they are suffering yet, and how terrible things have gotten under the Democratic White House. That’s precious coming from the man who almost singlehandedly created the current Democratic power lunge. After all, it was Trump who lost the popular vote in two consecutive elections,...
Xi Jinping, at the G20 summit — why a communist murderer is even allowed to attend an international economic conference in the first place is one of those questions that can only be answered by adopting a resigned “Such are the times we live in” frame of mind — expresses anger that his private chastisement of Justin Trudeau, whose country’s political system China...
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