Enjoying the view from Limbo
Do you believe that living longer, or living with the least risk to physical health and safety, is or ought to be the primary and overriding factor in living well? Do you believe that maintaining a clear line of demarcation between government officials recommending a course of action and the state demanding a course of action is an essential condition for preserving a...
The philosophic life, understanding that phrase in its most comprehensive and classical sense, can often seem a remote and unrealistic notion in our late modernity. Human existence today, in the developed world, is so fraught with inescapable interconnectedness, indoctrinated utilitarianism, and the practical appeal of “capitalist society,” that Socrates’ observation, during the sentencing phase of his trial, that he simply had no money...
It may not come. If it comes, it will bring disappointments, including the disappointment of reliving everything that disappoints you about today. Something will anger you. Someone will annoy or offend you. You will find yourself struggling to start a task you had hoped to undertake with enthusiasm, or you will start one but fail to complete it satisfactorily. You will fall short...
Jesus put up with a lot of crap from government. If He could do it, we can too. Richard Feynman: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” In other words, the search for truth begins with the presumption, if not the firm belief, that the experts of the day do not know what they think they know. An expert is a...
Good-and-Evil is the horizontal axis. Good-and-Bad is the vertical axis. The horizontal axis measures the moral realm — practical and “human, all too human” — where the standard is right and wrong in a social context. The vertical axis measures the cosmic or theoretical realm, where the standard is either wisdom vs. ignorance (Plato) or life-enhancement vs. life-diminution (Nietzsche). That either-or is not...
The specialist’s mind.— The problem with specialists, as Socrates reasoned with perfect clarity, and as modernity exhibits ubiquitously, is that the specialist knows about one thing, but through a combination of the pride of competence and the disproportion of exclusive focus, gradually comes to imagine that the one thing he knows is the lynchpin of all reality, such that he mistakes his extremely...
Can one be a successful politician without actively giving up the higher spiritual pursuits? That is, can one pursue a political career — in which effectiveness is built on the appearance of certainty, the rejection of doubts, and the reduction of all matters to action, agreement, and funding — without forsaking the love of the beautiful, the longing for truth, and the quest...
It is possible to criticize sexual attitudes or behaviors for reasons other than irrational fear of those attitudes or behaviors. It is likewise possible to dispute the theoretical denial of biological sex for reasons other than irrational fear of men who want to believe they are women. Thus, to categorically label all disagreement with the progressive push to normalize attitudes and behavior that...
Government vs. God / Ideas and Reflections / What is Progressivism?
by Daren Jonescu · Published August 2, 2021
Anything you have ever done or said, in any context, is grounds for moral condemnation today, if that word or action is deemed inconsistent in any possible way with current progressive attitudes. And the condemnation is absolute, disqualifying you from employment, public service, public discussion — in effect from anything that the Tribunal or its millions of ideological allies (or self-protective cowards) wish...
The number one requirement for any serious intellectual growth is time alone — a lot of it. The thoughtful young person, full of the self-doubt of ignorance and always worried about disapproval and rejection, needs the freedom to stretch out and wander without fear of continually running into walls of social stigma and ridicule. School seeks to occupy this young person’s days with...
Follow: