Enjoying the view from Limbo
A few thoughts on the eve of “the most consequential election in U.S. history,” as it is being advertised. (Sorry, in order for an election to be that, the U.S. would have to be the constitutional republic it once was, and civilization in a dangerous but reversible condition, neither of which is the case.) To be clear, mind you, I have no further...
Is having a fairly regular and predictable daily routine beneficial or harmful to the thinking life? The question is unanswerable until we have clearly distinguished between the two relevant kinds of routine.
There is the routine that aims to minimize the distractions of daily life, and then there is the routine…
Throughout the history of civilization, until just a moment ago, the attraction of “abroad” consisted of the enticing mystery of the unknown, the challenge of the unfamiliar, the risk of fundamental obscurity, and above all the hope, born of the deepest and most natural human need, that one might find wisdom out there. That is to say, the world beyond one’s own comfortable...
From the travel diary of a visitor in the realm of the last man: But I always think of these moments of decision as being like a long, winding slide. Everyone enjoys a slide, so you gladly wait your turn, propped up by the familiar faces and encouraging words of those already in line, until you get your chance to sit at the...
In Book I of his Politics, Aristotle offers a rational argument for the natural legitimacy of slavery. A modern person, encountering this fact for the first time, is likely to respond in one of two ways: (1) “Well, that shows how much we have advanced since Aristotle’s time, and makes it hard to take his political theories seriously;” or, (2) “I wonder how...
All of us are born in a cave, Socrates teaches (Republic VII), staring at shadows cast upon the back wall by images held in front of a fire behind us. From this starting point, he explains that education is the process of turning around in our chairs to see the fire, the objects dancing before it, and the men holding those objects, and...
Hidden premise. — To envy is to resent another for having what you might have had instead. But this implies an assumption that you could have had what the other has, which you would only know if you had actually achieved it yourself, in which case you would have no reason to envy. Hence, envy is, among other things, a convenient veil of...
Small talk is for killing time or manufacturing artificial familiarity. My personal motto, or self-motivation mantra, is “I don’t waste time,” and few things are more intrinsically repulsive to my character than artificial familiarity. Therefore, small talk is anathema to me….
by Daren Jonescu · Published April 26, 2024 · Last modified April 27, 2024
Socrates, in The Republic, defines the five essential forms of government in rank order, from most to least just: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny. His cleverest rhetorical trick, the most famous (and probably least understood) conceit in the dialogue, is his redefinition of aristocracy by means of the radical proposal that in order to realize a truly just city in practice, philosophers would...
An Orwellian entity called the European Court of Human Rights has declared that duly elected governments which pursue paths of fiscal responsibility and rational restraint with regard to the neo-Marxist demands of climate activists are by definition guilty of violating human rights, such rights now implicitly including the right to have one’s society and economy micromanaged by unfettered climate communists. In Scotland, it is...
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