Enjoying the view from Limbo
If the mind — consciousness, thought, will — is an illusion of the brain, as our modern scientific religion insists, then whose illusion is it? After all, the brain itself, as a recognizable and definable entity, would, on this view, have to be nothing but another facet of the illusion. In other words, the brain itself is an object of conscious thought, and...
One of the paradoxes of this age that has forfeited all belief in a reality beyond immediate sense perception, and all humanity beyond the material mechanism, is that people, though no longer believing they exist, have become hysterically obsessed with prolonging their “life” (i.e., their illusory appearance of self-moving unity) regardless of the cost. No price is too high to pay for a...
If there were no world, there would be only me — and therefore I would not exist. From this, it might also follow, contrary to the modern moan about man’s insignificance within the vastness of time and space, that my own existence is broadened, expanded, and deepened, precisely in proportion to the breadth, expanse, and depth of the world’s existence. The relevant question...
Who would not think, seeing us compose all things of mind and body, but that this mixture would be quite intelligible to us? Yet it is the very thing we least understand. Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body...
Yet again, socialists are out to prove beyond any doubt that their ideology is entirely rooted in, and fueled by, one overriding passion: envy. There is no subject more revealing of the Marxist mind than “the rich.” The moment a Marxist (or socialist or progressive) is asked to explain why it is problematic that some people are enormously wealthy, while others are not,...
“Now that you are close to graduating, you have to focus on getting a safe, comfortable job as quickly as possible.” Meaning: I don’t believe you can accomplish anything really worthwhile in life, so you shouldn’t waste your time trying. “A stable career is the most important thing.” Meaning: Money is the most important thing. “Get your head out of the clouds and...
This week, North Korea has continued to test and perfect its missile systems, while Donald Trump reassures everyone that all is well with his relationship with his good friend Kim Jong Un. Meanwhile, the United States of America, the last hope for any semblance of individual liberty and citizen self-determination to survive on this planet into the foreseeable future, has taken yet another...
by Daren Jonescu · Published December 31, 2018 · Last modified January 2, 2019
Two thousand eighteen, upon any honest reflection, must be judged to have been a year of robust and energetic activity for the forces of tyranny, inhumanity, and vulgarism. In other words, it was yet another year — and perhaps more than just “another year” — of predictable failure for freedom, character, and taste. In short, the body is winning, the soul losing; earth...
Ideas and Reflections / Liberty's Labors Lost
by Daren Jonescu · Published July 29, 2018 · Last modified August 1, 2018
Modernity is, or was, the age of the triumph of practical reason, and the flourishing and harnessing of an emancipated desire for earthly wellbeing and individual self-determination. Its definitive political development was the limited republic, the premise of which was that normal human beings left to their own devices will sort themselves into a reasonable public shape beneficial to all, and the necessary...
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