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Sep 5
5 min

The commodification of education

David Noble's essay "Digital Diploma Mills," written in the 1990s, is a brilliant and still timely critique of the automation and commodi...

Aug 30
37 min

Critical remarks on academia and philosophy

I was recently skimming old notes of mine and came across the following thoughts from a two-volume book on "humanism" I wanted to write i...

Aug 27
21 min

The remarkable perversity of idealism

Many years ago, when I was a simple boy who thought he ought to know a lot about Hegel, I took masses of notes on his philosophy. Below i...

Aug 25
9 min

Thou shalt not worship intellectuals

When I read old books or articles that are totally forgotten despite being brilliant, it saddens me. Siblings of Donald Trump publish bes...

Aug 21
9 min

I wish stupidity were less common

This is going to be a whiny, self-pitying post. Just to warn you. The question is sometimes asked, "Why are stupid people frequently so m...

Jul 30
16 min

The heartbreak of staggering self-consciousness

Today I came across a copy of Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and was reminded of myself in my twenties, when I was ...

Jun 8
7 min

Appreciative and not-so-appreciative thoughts on cultural theory

[These notes, for what they're worth, are from, respectively, 2010 and 2018.] Reading Raymond Williams’ classic Marxism and Literature (1...

Jun 6
17 min

Rambling reflections on Camille Paglia

I've been reading Camille Paglia's collection of essays Sex, Art, and American Culture (1992). I disagree with a lot of Paglia's opinions...

Jul 27, 2019
5 min

On the fight against misogyny

As a leftist, "I wish we could all just get along." Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe it would get boring pretty quickly. But a little less co...

Jul 24, 2019
20 min

A little misanthropy can be a healthy thing

This is from a letter Sigmund Freud wrote to his pastor friend Oskar Pfister: I do not break my head very much about good and evil, but I...

Jul 19, 2019
7 min

A plea for honesty in discussions of sex and gender

A recent article of mine, called "Political Correctness Is Getting Out of Hand," elicited some angry emails. Not from people who disagree...

Dec 12, 2018
4 min

Against "the postmodern novel"

[Here's an excerpt from a book on 'humanism' I wanted to write back in 2006. It's from a passage in which I was arguing against postmoder...

Jul 13, 2018
4 min

Critical thoughts on "The Alchemist"

[Notes from 2006.] Reading The Alchemist, the novel that has sold tens of millions of copies. “To realize one’s destiny is a person’s onl...

May 29, 2018
8 min

The importance of John Brown

[Grad-school notes...] I'm reading about John Brown--David Reynolds' John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Ci...

Mar 23, 2018
1 min

The Destruction of Reason

Just a quick note: I recently posted a long summary of and commentary on Georg Lukacs' masterpiece The Destruction of Reason, which has b...

Mar 11, 2018
9 min

Collectivism

[Excerpts from this book.] Collectivism comes in both noble and evil forms. In the former, the principle of the individual is paramount; ...

Nov 30, 2016
6 min

On Susan Sontag

[Notes from 2008.] Reading Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation, and Other Essays. It’s wonderful to think that the publication (in 1966...

Nov 10, 2016
2 min

On "success"

[From this book.] The more one experiences the world, the more one understands how difficult it is to be “successful” and have integrity ...

Jul 29, 2016
4 min

Contemporary philosophy vs. sanity

[The following is a vignette I wrote years ago when studying for my Master's in philosophy. I was taking a class in contemporary metaphys...

Jul 9, 2016
6 min

Elite pretentiousness

The following is the beginning of an essay I wanted to write years ago on the concept of pretentiousness, a phenomenon the ubiquity of wh...

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