Positive lies about yourself are no more secure a foundation for actualization that negative lies. Understanding and taking responsibility for yourself as a particular individual in your own care is the beginning of actualization, maturity, and integration. No amount of positive or negative self talk can paper over your essential nature. The underlying features ofContinue reading “The roots of confidence”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Regarding Dan Crenshaw
I don’t agree with Dan about numerous things, but because he has a coherent and rational intellectual system inside which those disagreements could be discussed and progress could be made, I know that I could trust him and we could work together productively to make progress toward both our concerns. In other words, he hasContinue reading “Regarding Dan Crenshaw”
Rights and opportunities
As Americans, we possess the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Note that we are not actually granted a right to happiness itself. That’s not a right someone can grant to someone else. So what’s the difference? The difference is between granting a right to an endeavor, an experiment, an effort, aContinue reading “Rights and opportunities”
In praise of gridlock
It’s actually a positive feature of our government that it’s easiest to get things done, get laws passed, and get people elected at the lowest and most local levels, and it is at those levels that the government should most impact your life. At its highest levels, the government has the most restrictions, hurdles, checks,Continue reading “In praise of gridlock”
A letter to the superintendent
I read in the newsletter about the DEI initiative. I understand that there is a big push in all public and private institutions to engage in a voluntary inquisition to root out alleged white supremacy and systemic racism, and I appreciate the need to address the concerns of customers or people who make use ofContinue reading “A letter to the superintendent “
A letter in thanks for an article on Sir Roger Scruton by his literary executor
Thank you so much for your article on Sir Roger today. I enjoyed reading it. It’s strange how someone dies and then everyone tries to lay claim to their legacy. I confess I didn’t discover Roger until more recently, despite having spent my life studying philosophy and British literature. I confess I most ignored mostContinue reading “A letter in thanks for an article on Sir Roger Scruton by his literary executor”
Misandry and marketing
I’m getting really, really tired of previews for shows starring women that all center around the conceit of “that’s right, I’m X and I’m a woman!” and all the men are mysogynistic jerks and she’s the clever, modern person schooling them in how awesome she is compared to all those dumb men. And sometimes sheContinue reading “Misandry and marketing”
The pain of past experiences
It has been written that much good can be undone by one sinner. One might also reflect that much wisdom is undone by a drop of foolishness. Often with people they have very bad experiences with a corrupt or even simply misguided or limited imperfect version of something or someone. A bad parent, a badContinue reading “The pain of past experiences”
Dieting and moralizing
Diets have always been as much about a philosophy and a kind of cult culture (in the general sense, not the religious sense) as they have been about actual food. Go all the way back to the days of the ancient Greeks and you find all sorts of crazy diets and theories about how theyContinue reading “Dieting and moralizing”
A letter to a friend
Dear J, as someone who has struggled through history and philosophy and religion for years, as well as shouldering a significant burden of depression that seems to arise almost inevitably as result of raising one’s awareness to the reality of such things, there is always one place I have found comfort, and I commend itContinue reading “A letter to a friend”
Good cop parenting
Parenting is often a simple matter of playing good cop bad cop. It’s pretty hard to play it with yourself. There’s a reason why it’s a stereotype. It’s a useful strategy. And really, both cops are good cops. It just helps to have two complimentary approaches. In reality the goals of both cops are theContinue reading “Good cop parenting”
Three short commentaries: on election struggles, politics and marriage, and human fallibility
It’s unfortunate how much political haymaking is going on right now as the election results are being certified. As someone who has no respect for or investment in either side, the irony and hypocrisy of both is quite shocking. People who are anti-Trump are shocked and appalled, of course, but having witnessed their own previousContinue reading “Three short commentaries: on election struggles, politics and marriage, and human fallibility”
Coveting one another’s virtues and vices
Somehow our culture is obsessed with making virtues out of our vices. And we’re so eager to embrace them that we make our actual virtues and strengths into shameful weaknesses and vices. Women, on average, are more agreeable than men, but now publicly prize disagreeability and shame agreeability, as if women being proud of beingContinue reading “Coveting one another’s virtues and vices”
The coming election and likely Trump loss
Trump keeps talking about election fraud. The cost of fraud and the likelihood it will be exposed are very high. And the potential gain of fraud is actually very small in a national-scale election. Error has a far larger actual effect on national voting than any amount of historical actual fraud. Trump just stokes thisContinue reading “The coming election and likely Trump loss”
On Shelby Steele
Reading Shelby’s book last year really changed how I understand not just America, but all kinds of things about all kinds of societies. I think he’s onto something about people in general and how moral-religious rituals in cultures center around guilt and absolution and the creation of a priestly class who gain moral (and perhapsContinue reading “On Shelby Steele”
Surviving gender dissolution
The problem is that gender is one of the most, if not the most, fundamental representational category for human understanding. It’s one of the most basic things that a species is and must be aware of to function. So it’s one of the most basic bases of human thought, how we understand and conceptualize theContinue reading “Surviving gender dissolution”
A comment on an argument about postmodernism
Don’t we all want equality? It all depends on what you mean by “equality” or equal treatment or even equal rights. Does equal mean “the same”? Fundamentally, are men the same as women? Are all cultures fundamentally the same? Is a transgender man the same as a biological man? If by equality you mean thatContinue reading “A comment on an argument about postmodernism”
Immigration
From an unsent letter The thing that is interesting about immigration and group conflict and prejudice isn’t that it was so especially unique or terrible in America, it’s that it’s a universal problem everywhere, for all humans, and continues to be at all levels of socieity and, in all places, among all people, including thoseContinue reading “Immigration”
The mixed benefits of losing organized religion
Some people seem to have misapprehended the message of Christianity. It isn’t that some people are good and some are bad (that’s our unsophisticated emotional instinct), it’s that some behaviors are good and some behaviors are bad, and all people are capable of participating in either one. There’s a world of difference there. But peopleContinue reading “The mixed benefits of losing organized religion”
Can you fix inequality?
The classic question that seems to be being debated in society today at all levels is essentially this: “Why shouldn’t this person or endeavkr be distributed the same goods or status as this other person or endeavor?” Why are things not the same? Why are they not fair, meaning equal, meaning possessed of the sameContinue reading “Can you fix inequality?”
Making Nobody Happy 