Most people calibrate their positions on issues by observing others. The social family provides a structure of costs and benefits, a sort of behavioral and attitudinal economy. And most people are instinctively invested in and responsive to that market. And well they should be. It’s actually very hard for a single person to effectively judgeContinue reading “Convinced or able to be convinced?”
Tag Archives: philosophy
Progress and moral relativism
The idea of progress is indefinable and incoherent if there is no fixed value (even in a merely numerical sense) toward which you are progressing. A series of random numbers does not progress toward anything. It merely changes. And there is no essential difference in position between any particular number in the series and anyContinue reading “Progress and moral relativism”
Morality without religion?
One statement I often hear from humanistic atheists like Stephen Fry that I think is obviously false is the claim that you can have morality without religion. I think that claim is not only untrue, but definitively untrue. And recent events should prove that. Sam Harris and Stephen Fry themselves would have to admit thatContinue reading “Morality without religion?”
Religious musings
These are not only things that are, they are things that must be. 1. People crave moral legitimacy and moral justification. 2. Sacrifice is continual. 3. You can’t get rid of the need for sacrifice, it just goes somewhere else. We are piñoned between past and future, caught at their intersection. We must be releasedContinue reading “Religious musings”
Comments on the talk between Jordan Peterson and Michael Schermer
I think what Jordan is basically arguing about religion is that it is at least symbolically or psychologically or archetypally true. And that that’s an important, maybe the most important, way something can be true (in an almost Platonic sense, as an abstraction or a aggregate, a bit like math is true in relation toContinue reading “Comments on the talk between Jordan Peterson and Michael Schermer”
On making other happy and meaning
I find that trying to make yourself happy is often far more difficult and less effective than trying to make someone else happy. Somehow, when you focus on yourself, it just doesn’t have the same effect. It’s very hard to do things for yourself and have them be very meaningful. For one thing, there isContinue reading “On making other happy and meaning”
Why are humans so powerful?
What is a durable foundation for a life? What will last and create power, regardless of circumstances or technology? What is the fundamental mode of being that can make humans succeed and grow regardless of their situation? It cannot be something we invent, it must be something we already possess or possess access to, becauseContinue reading “Why are humans so powerful?”
Discrimination
The idea of discrimination is a tough one to crack. People use the word pejoratively, and use it specifically as a justification for the enactment of legal powers and penalties against organizations and individuals. In a purely common sense manner, though, there is no such thing as outlawing discrimination. All thought, all value assignment, allContinue reading “Discrimination”
A children’s guide to Marxism
I recently read a summary of Marx’s ideas in a philosophy book for children that summed up his cultural and intellectual contributions thusly: He really cared about poor people, he was unpopular for his ideas, but his ideas ended up being very influential, so maybe they weren’t so wrong after all. That was pretty muchContinue reading “A children’s guide to Marxism”
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”
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”
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?”
Optimistic modernism
In response to the optimistic modernism of Greg Lukianov and James Lindsay I listened to a great discussion between a couple of my favorite thinkers. But I can’t help but wonder if there are some things that are being assumed or ignored. The current historical and philosophical moment is the direct child of science andContinue reading “Optimistic modernism”
Why we need the noble savage
We must believe in the myth of the noble savage. It is this story, this mythology, that allows us to maintain the great fiction that guards and preserves the deep psychological needs of our hearts. There is something deep inside us that it protects, a different story, a nagging doubt, a yawning void, that itContinue reading “Why we need the noble savage”
The source of a culture’s lifeblood
The power of the creative divine belongs to those who have a vision of the future and are willing to bear or assign the responsibility for it. Either to carry it or to remove those who stand in its way. The power of the vision and the assignment of responsibility allows human to rise aboveContinue reading “The source of a culture’s lifeblood”
Heroes and villains
Do people need enemies? Do they instinctively seek them out? The thing that is preventing the future we envision from coming to pass. How we conceive of those enemies seems to matter a lot. Certain ideologies, such as Christianity, actively encourage us not to view actual other people as our enemies, but rather, impersonal forcesContinue reading “Heroes and villains”
The blind spots of all societies
It is in the nature of every civilization to be blinded by two things. First the “things that everybody knows”, the basic, fairly unchallenged assumptions that drive people’s view of the world. The “first principles” of the science of life that are themselves axiomatic (as Aristotle pointed out). The second is the confidence and selfContinue reading “The blind spots of all societies “
The modernist confusion about postmodernism
One refrain that seems to come up often lately among the remaining modernists in academia is, how could this have happened? Viewing (accurately) the collapse of the ideas of truth and evidence and the descent into a postmodern ecosystem of manipulation and tribalism, they wonder where it all went wrong. Having previously spent their daysContinue reading “The modernist confusion about postmodernism”
What does saying something evolved accomplish?
I am trying to understand a linguistic and logical problem with the way we talk about certain positive traits we describe as evolutionary products. The problem is, that is some sense we seem to be saying that the cause of the causes are their effects. That in some sense the trajectory of time was inevitablyContinue reading “What does saying something evolved accomplish? “
On acts of courage and defiance and stubborn people
I walked away from my masters degree the week of graduation because I wouldn’t agree to the demands of my thesis committee, since I saw them as fundamentally compromising my beliefs. Now, maybe that’s because I was an idiot and a jerk and a coward. And I always want to keep that as my primaryContinue reading “On acts of courage and defiance and stubborn people “
Making Nobody Happy 