Enjoying the view from Limbo
Death by Education / Ideas and Reflections / What is Progressivism?
by Daren Jonescu · Published July 16, 2023 · Last modified July 23, 2023
Almost two thousand years ago, the Romans rounded up Christians and other offenders against official beliefs and fed them to wild dogs and lions, as a form of popular religious expression/entertainment. A few hundred years ago, it was Christians of Europe and America rounding up alleged witches, and burning them at the stake or hanging them, as an expression of religious orthodoxy. What...
The most effective way to enslave a man — most effective in the sense of providing the greatest possible assurance that one need fear no significant rebellion — is not to forcibly restrain him, against his desire to flee. For such restraint merely reminds him, at every moment, that there is a place which your interests demand that he never go, thus whetting...
Death by Education / Ideas and Reflections / What is The Establishment?
by Daren Jonescu · Published June 4, 2023 · Last modified June 26, 2023
The challenge in teaching Plato’s Apology used to be overcoming the students’ incredulity and incomprehension faced with the historical fact of a supposedly democratic society rejecting the philosophic activity so stridently as to put a man’s freedom and his very life on trial, merely for asking questions that the political establishment did not like. “How unjust and intolerant the Athenian people must have...
When you encounter a theoretical or artistic work that has been highly regarded by advanced societies since before you were born, perhaps even before your great-great-grandparents were born, the reasonable point of view is to assume that the work must have some sort of merit, perhaps even greatness, that justifies its longevity and enduring admiration. This is not to say that you must...
Death by Education / What is Progressivism?
by Daren Jonescu · Published February 2, 2023 · Last modified February 3, 2023
An adjunct professor foolish enough to teach an art class at a totalitarian reeducation camp in Minnesota (aka Hamline University) showed a medieval painting depicting Muhammad, after having directly advised students in the course syllabus and during the semester that this painting would be shown and discussed in her online lecture, and offering an opportunity for any students who might be inclined to...
There is very little profit to be made from the truth, whereas there is tremendous profit to be made from lies. The reason is simple: People pay for what they think they need, and most people feel an overwhelming need for comfort and reassurance, which are precisely what all effective lies (and liars) are offering. Truth, by contrast, neither cares what will make...
Death by Education / Ideas and Reflections / What is The Establishment?
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 29, 2022
Love for “nature” in the modern sense grows in inverse proportion to one’s ability to love nature in the ancient sense. That is, if humans today were more interesting, less mindlessly slavish, less devoted to the emptiest pursuits, and more open to the consideration of ideas, beauties, and ways of living truly alternative to those promoted in the popular culture, I would probably...
Death by Education / Ideas and Reflections / Pandemic that Ate a Planet
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 14, 2022
George Clooney, a thoroughly inconsequential member of an ultimately inconsequential profession who because he is famous for being famous believes, like so many of his ilk, that the world ought to care what he thinks about important political issues, has praised Australia’s Covid-19 response, and declared, on the basis of his no doubt expert-analyzed calculations, that 900,000 lives would have been saved had...
What is disturbing about today’s university is not the recognition that so few people in it see the world as I do. Disagreement or minority status never bothers me. Rather it is that so few are able even to comprehend the possibility that anyone might not see the world as they do. The uniformity of assumptions and presuppositions, the perfect conformity of all...
Death by Education / Ideas and Reflections
by Daren Jonescu · Published May 31, 2022 · Last modified June 26, 2022
The primary aims of the university, from its medieval foundations until about fifty years ago, were to prod a young person into doubting his youthful certainties, to shake the foundations of his most cherished and comforting assumptions, to push him into a vast, confusing marketplace of ideas and sensibilities, where…
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