Tag Archives: survival of the fittest
Snobbism
Snobbism I was reminded of how much I hate snobbism by another biography of a philosopher. Having just finished Ray Monk’s Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, from which I learned about a man, an era and a creative philosophical method … Continue reading →
Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Anthropology, Art of Living, Autonomy, books, bureaucracy, Childhood, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, life and death struggle, Male Power, Masculinity, master, master/slave relation, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Roles, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, Sexuality, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, Spirituality, status, status of women, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Alan Turing, American high school, biography of a philosopher, Cambridge University, charm v character, Cheryl Misak’s Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers, contemporary culture, continental snobs, cultural era, cultural pecking order, culture of intimidation, Darwinian games, dinner with the count, discouraging bullies, dying young, economics, English public school, English snobbery, English snobs, English universities, Ethiopian nobility, fox hunt, French aristocrat, French count, good at games, good at school work, good manners, hereditary privilege, high school rank, hounds at the hunt, influencing Wittgenstein, intellectual aristocracy, intellectual hierarchy, invited philosophy paper, Kurt Godel, life as a test of thought, living one’s views, math, outliving high school rank, outranking somebody, philosophers’ lives, philosophic creativity, philosophic method, philosophy, post-lecture gathering, prep school, pretentiouness, Ramsey Pricing, Ramsey Sentences, Ramseyan Humility, Ramsey’s influence, Ramsey’s Problem, Ramsification, Ray Monk’s Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, rudeness, Russian princesses, snob as hound at the foxhunt, snobbism, snubbing, social ordeal, social target, sporty type, survival of the fittest, the Keynes-Ramsey Rule, the Ramsey Test for Conditionals, thinker’s life, thought and life, unofficial caste, unpretentiousness, Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus
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The Moral Markers
The Moral Markers From time to time, I pause to picture how the recent phases of my life would look to me if there were no God in the pictures. It’s a sort of thought experiment. Philosophers are given to … Continue reading →
Posted in Absurdism, Action, Alienation, Anthropology, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, books, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, Journalism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, Mortality, nineteenth-century, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged abstraction, absurdity, agnostic, Atheism, atheistic world view, Authenticity, beyond good and evil, brute forces, complementarity in friendship, concrete experience, consequential decisions, constructive orientation, controlled experiment, cynicism, deleted datum, erasing evidence, experimental confirmation, experimental disconfirmation, false consciousness, fashionable abstractions, fashionable views, feigned belief, fork in the road, Friedrich Nietzsche, integrating experience, limited palette, loyalty v betrayal, Martin Heidegger, meaning of life, meaningful life, models of the ultimate, modern life, Modernity, moral choice, moral fork in the road, moral indices, moral markers, moral neutrality, no rhyme or reason, novelistic plotline, objectivity claims, opinion shapers, opposites attract, pointlessness, power relations, projection, random energy, reality as absurd, relationship dynamics, Social Darwinism, social pretense, survival of the fittest, Swedish descent, the Modern world, the Post-Modern world, theism, theistic world view, thought experiment, Valhalla, Vedantist, Viking worldview
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World History and Me
World History and Me Last night I watched a documentary about the “discovery” by Europeans of the Western Hemisphere – that vast tract of land between Europe and the India that the spice-hunters sought. In my childhood, that discovery was … Continue reading →
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art of Living, Biblical God, Christianity, Contradictions, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Ethics, Evil, exploitation, Faith, Films, Freedom, Guilt and Innocence, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, Jews, Journalism, Judaism, Law, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Male Power, Martyrdom, Masculinity, master, Medieval, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, non-violence, Oppression, pacifism, Past and Future, Peace, Phenomenology of Mind, Philosophy, Poetry, Political, Political Movements, politics, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Race, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Renaissance, Roles, scientism, self-deception, slave, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, Suffering, Terror, terrorism, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged 10 commandments, 16th century advances, 17th century colonists, advances in navigation, advances in ship-building, advances in world trade, adventurers, American good guys, American guilt, ancient Israelites, animal nature, australopithecines, biblical battles, Biblical historicity, Bronze Age cities, cherem, chosen people, co-religionists, collective atonement, collective guilt, collective penance, colonization, conquest of the weak, conquistadores, Darwinians, defeat of the weakest, depopulation, discovery of America, European diseases, European exploration, European massacres, evolutionary survival, exile, explorers, extinction of hominids, fossil record, genocide, God's blueprint, God's people, God's sovereignty, hegemony, historical guilt, Homer, hominid competition, hominids, homo erectus, homo naledi, homo neanderthalensis, homo sapiens sapiens, hypocrisy, idol worship, indigenous peoples, interpersonal aggression, Israelite wars of destruction, Jesus, Maccabees, man as animal, manipulative moralizing, missionaries, moral high ground, moral posturing, moral rank-pulling, Native Americans, natural defenses, Nazi bad guys, Nazi language, New World, niceness and brutality, Nietzsche, non-fiction narrative, non-violence, Old Testament God, organized pogroms, pagan ways, Pentateuch, personal history, pioneers, policing language, political theory, pre-Columbian population, promised land, psychological self-defense, Queen Isabella, religious non-violence, religious violence, Roman hegemony, securing territory, small pox, survival of the fittest, survival of the strongest, territorial defense, theory of history, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, Torah Study, Trojan War, TV documentary, violence, virgin continent, virtue signaling, voyage of Columbus, war of all against all, will-to-power
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“Meta-Narratives”
“Meta-Narratives” There is a French post-modern philosopher who writes, “I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.” By that is meant, there is no large story – no history of humanity as such – into which our private stories, the novellas … Continue reading →
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, Anthropology, Art, Autonomy, Cities, Class, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Gender Balance, Guilt and Innocence, Health, Heroes, History, history of ideas, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Institutional Power, Jews, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, master, Memoir, Mind Control, Modernism, nineteenth-century, Phenomenology of Mind, Philosophy, Poetry, Political, Political Movements, Power, Psychology, Public Intellectual, Race, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Seduction, Sex Appeal, slave, Social Conventions, Sociobiology, Spirituality, Suffering, Terror, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, Theism, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged "all the world's a stage", Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Getting Past Marx and Freud", abstractions, Adolf Hitler, Albert Camus, alienation, analytic geometry, Cartesian Method, Charles Darwin, civilization, class warfare, communism, counter-narrative, fanaticism, fiction, historiography, Holocaust, humanism, ideality, imagination, Jean-Francios Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition, Jewish influence, Karl Marx, laws of nature, laws of physics, macro-history, man-made meta-narratives, Marxism, meta-narrative, Modernity, narrative, Newton, nonfiction, novelists, novels, Old World charm, plot, Providential history, Rene Descartes' Rules for the Direction of the Mind, science, self evidence, seventeenth century, skepticism, story, survival of the fittest, theory of evolution, Timothy Snyder's Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, urban planning, urban renewal, utopia, W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming", wage slaves, Western history, world history, writers
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