Enjoying the view from Limbo
Enduring fame is either an emblem of vulgar vanity or an indication of past virtue. In either case, vanity or virtue, the remnant is generic, in that it can in no way reveal what is personal or individual in the doer, but rather, if anything, obscures it even more completely than the mists of time can obscure the person who remains “unaccomplished” and...
by Daren Jonescu · Published February 18, 2025 · Last modified February 21, 2025
Occasionally, one happens upon a certain page of classic literature at a strikingly appropriate moment, such that its evergreen insights appear to have fallen directly into one’s immediate midst and experience like a gracious snowfall of cleansing wisdom, leaving one feeling almost as though a long-dead author had mysteriously inserted this commentary into his work anachronistically, or just yesterday, for your personal benefit....
Ideas and Reflections / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 25, 2022 · Last modified December 29, 2022
Jordan Peterson appeared on a program hosted by Piers Morgan to discuss Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. He insisted, among other things, that (a) Putin is in no significant way similar to Hitler or Stalin, i.e., not really a tyrant of global expansionist intentions at all, (b) there is no possible way that Ukraine can win the war, (c) even if Putin decides...
I was not an admirer of Rush Limbaugh. As I explained in a recent post, I think he, or rather the response to him in “conservative America,” has done much more harm than good to the cause of constitutional republicanism. But disagreeing with a man’s perspective, or questioning his legacy, is quite a bit different from peeing on his grave. Bette Midler, who...
A few years back, Jordan Peterson, a University of Toronto professor of psychology, shot from little-known academic to international celebrity intellectual, based largely on his strong remarks against politically correct language laws on an Ontario public television program. Watching Peterson’s rise to prominence, I recognized in his trajectory many of the same crossroads choices I had been dealing with myself as a writer,...
Jordan Peterson, Canadian professor of clinical psychology cum politically incorrect lightening rod cum global celebrity self-help guru, has, unfortunately, fallen prey to the demons of fame, self-importance, and the sense of irrational urgency — “it has to be me, it has to be now” — that attends the sudden explosion of unexpected praise and mass admiration in the life of a thoughtful but...
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