Jul 10, 202115 minAgainst liberal "pluralism"In the time of Trumpism, Michael Paul Rogin’s great book The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter (1967) shouldn’t be as...
Aug 30, 202037 minCritical remarks on academia and philosophyI was recently skimming old notes of mine and came across the following thoughts from a two-volume book on "humanism" I wanted to write...
Aug 27, 202021 minThe remarkable perversity of idealismMany 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...
Aug 25, 20209 minThou shalt not worship intellectualsWhen I read old books or articles that are totally forgotten despite being brilliant, it saddens me. Siblings of Donald Trump publish...
Aug 23, 202045 minThe radical dimensions of mass consciousness, part 1I'm kind of a "vulgar Marxist." In this respect, I suppose I'm a lot like people in the American ruling class, except that their values...
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 6, 202016 minRambling reflections on Camille PagliaI've been reading Camille Paglia's collection of essays Sex, Art, and American Culture (1992). I disagree with a lot of Paglia's...
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 11, 201910 minWhat will "the revolution" look like?Here's a blog post for you masochists who are interested in the debates that go on among Marxist intellectuals over questions around...
Mar 23, 20181 minThe Destruction of ReasonJust a quick note: I recently posted a long summary of and commentary on Georg Lukacs' masterpiece The Destruction of Reason, which has...
Mar 11, 20189 minCollectivism[Excerpts from this book.] Collectivism comes in both noble and evil forms. In the former, the principle of the individual is paramount;...
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...
Jul 20, 20163 minRichard Lewontin, Chomsky, and common senseRichard Lewontin’s article “The Evolution of Cognition: Questions We Will Never Answer” is excellent. It counsels skepticism about...
Jul 9, 20165 minElite pretentiousnessThe following is the beginning of an essay I wanted to write years ago on the concept of pretentiousness, a phenomenon the ubiquity of...
May 21, 20161 minHistorians and existentialismIn a sense, writing history is an intrinsically moral activity—although different kinds of history embody different degrees of morality....
Sep 26, 20157 minEconomics as class warReading the Chomsky-recommended Political Economy and Laissez-Faire: Economics and Ideology in the Ricardian Era (1986), by Rajani Kanth....
Sep 25, 20154 minOn "The Reactionary Mind"Reading The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin (2011), by Corey Robin. An elegant and erudite elaboration of...
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”...