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Sep 5, 2020
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, 2020
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, 2020
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, 2020
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, 2020
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, 2020
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, 2020
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, 2020
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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