Apr 89 minOn stupidity and the excesses of wokenessOne of the first laws of human existence, or at least of existence in class societies (determined by anti-human institutions that mold...
Sep 8, 202022 minFrom Steve Fraser's "The Age of Acquiescence"I just finished reading Steve Fraser's masterful The Age of Acquiescence (2014), which compares the popular responses to America's two...
Aug 21, 20209 minI wish stupidity were less commonThis is going to be a whiny, self-pitying post. Just to warn you. The question is sometimes asked, "Why are stupid people frequently so...
Jun 13, 20206 minGender norms in a Chilean copper mine[This was supposed to be a short outline for a student presentation I had to give. So excuse the roughness. Here are more book reviews.]...
Jul 24, 201919 minA little misanthropy can be a healthy thingThis 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, 20197 minA plea for honesty in discussions of sex and genderA recent article of mine, called "Political Correctness Is Getting Out of Hand," elicited some angry emails. Not from people who...
Jul 13, 20184 minCritical 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...
May 28, 20186 minAgainst idealism[The following thoughts are from this book.] It’s funny that people often deprecate Marxian materialism as an explanation of society and...
Nov 10, 20162 minOn "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, 20164 minContemporary 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...
Jun 22, 20166 minAn underwhelming encounter with ChristiansA misadventure. [Written in 2006.]— At lunch in the campus center I saw a flyer advertising an event tonight having something to do with...
May 23, 20163 minFar-left, i.e., rational and open-minded[Old notes from my journal.] A lot of mainstream people would criticize me for immersing myself in leftist scholarship and journalism,...
Aug 19, 20152 min"False consciousness"Leftists are sometimes criticized for being condescending toward the masses, for arguing that they are prone to displaying "false...
Aug 14, 20153 minOn late-19th-century decadence and its aftermathWhat is the significance of the fact that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries certain (semi-fascist) sections of the...
Aug 10, 20154 minThe making of the working classI'm finally reading [in 2011] E. P. Thompson’s classic The Making of the English Working Class (1963). Query: why was England so...
Apr 23, 20153 minSubversive common sense[This is another book-excerpt, a negatively charged one this time.] Nietzsche’s self-appointed task of “revaluating values” isn’t...
Apr 15, 20152 minGötzendämmerungAlbert Camus: “We [moderns] read more than we meditate. We have no philosophies but merely commentaries. This is what Étienne Gilson...
Apr 11, 20155 minThe fraudulence of status[The following is an excerpt from this book.] In order to determine someone’s intellectual or artistic integrity and acuity, a simple...
Feb 3, 20152 minAnti-intellectual intellectualsIf intellectual curiosity means the desire to learn new things, encounter new ideas, explore and explain the world, then “intellectuals”...
Sep 27, 20143 minRadical human natureThe power of indoctrination is shown by the fact that most people don’t consider themselves radical leftists, socialists, or anarchists....