Enjoying the view from Limbo
Rule of thumb.— Authority should never be in the hands of those who want it. The principle of decentralization.– The level of authority one human being has over another should be directly proportional to the level of personal interest and affection that defines their relationship. Hence, parents and other family elders ought to be the primary authorities in every child’s life, friends and...
Yet again last night, the most popular host on Fox News was joined by his favorite military “expert,” Douglas Macgregor, as the two men continued not only to insist that Russia has effectively already won the war in which it is increasingly obvious to everyone else that Putin’s military has been decimated and humiliated by a tiny foe, but more importantly ramped up...
Six days ago, I wrote of the Russian state media’s calls for Vladimir Putin to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons in response to NATO’s alleged nuclear threats against Russia. At that time, I wrote: In short, Russia, in desperation and about to suffer the most humiliating military defeat since the United States scurried away from the Taliban like the frightened rats...
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 21, 2022 · Last modified March 15, 2023
The internet is a most appropriate, we might almost say idealized, manifestation of late modernity. For, in a perfect crystallization of the age, it democratizes expression, relativizes relevance, and exponentially expands the sense of exposure within the human world, both one’s own exposure to that world and its ubiquitous exposure to oneself. Since, furthermore, the human world is comprised of far more ugliness...
Here is a social media post from the White House, i.e., from the nominal leadership group of the entire free world: A “digital dollar” may seem far-fetched, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility. Today, the Biden-Harris Administration published policy objectives and a technical analysis for a potential U.S. central bank digital currency: https://t.co/VrwSs7hpNS — White House Office of Science &...
If all the simpletons and halfwits magically disappeared from the Earth, society would be infinitely more rational; but then who would do the menial jobs, such as practicing modern medicine, banking, leading our largest churches, and inventing the internet? Plato’s great political insight, the founding wisdom of political philosophy itself: The only men intellectually and temperamentally suited to rule are precisely the ones...
Russian state television, aka the official propaganda wing of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, is openly “advising” Putin (whose official message this is) that “the time has come for us to hold drills for practising scenarios in which Russian tactical nuclear weapons are used,” on the pretext that “We will soon be issued with a direct nuclear ultimatum from Nato [sic].” In other words, just...
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...
The one and only person whose existence held slightly ajar the door of legitimacy in anyone’s honest judgment of the relevance of the British monarchy in the twenty-first century has now died. Queen Elizabeth II allowed our imaginations to remain connected to the royal family’s meaningful past not only because she ascended to the throne back when that past was still somewhat alive,...
For two centuries, the dominant scholarly view of the notion of esoteric or “secret” philosophic doctrines, particularly as regards the canonical thinkers, is that such a notion is simply out of the question. Though the history of philosophy is replete with direct and indirect references to public teachings which vary from private beliefs, and to the philosopher’s need for circumspection in speaking of...
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