Are you exceptionally likeable?
I already know that I’m not. Some people like me exceptionally well. But I think most people find me a trifle odd. Maybe not just a trifle. And now I know why. I don’t fit this profile at all, and … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Getting philosophical: life, love, the universe
The left: principles vs. principles
Commenter “Mac” writes: I recently had an exchange with a leftist who explicitly rejected the significance of plain facts to the debate. For him the only *fact* that mattered was that his cause was morally right. It dawned on me … Continue reading →
Identity, the individual, and the mind: the Hogan twins, joined at the brain
The other night I happened across a documentary on TLC entitled “Inseparable: Joined.” Here’s an article about the people the documentary explored: the conjoined Hogan twins of Canada, who are joined at the brain: Craniopagus twins, joined at the head, … Continue reading →
Frostian thought for the day: on justice vs. mercy
Anyone who’s read this blog for a while is well aware of how much I admire both the poetry and the thought of Robert Frost. For example, there’s this [in the excerpt that follows, Frost uses “justice” in the traditional … Continue reading →
Leninthink
Another great article by Gary Saul Morson has been published in New Criterion. He’s the author who wrote a piece about Solzhenitsyn that I discussed previously here. This time Morson is writing about Lenin – or rather, about the thought … Continue reading →
Chaos: Jordan Peterson on being cheated on
If you’ve ever been cheated on or betrayed, this might resonate. It’s not just about the person who lied to you, it’s about your view of yourself in the world: Insight can help turn chaos into order. I have experienced … Continue reading →
Waking up in a strange place
Did you ever wake up convinced you were in one place, and then look around and realize you’re in another? Maybe you’re on vacation and you think you’re at home, until you look around the room and everything is unfamiliar. … Continue reading →
Inner speech
Do you talk to yourself? Not aloud (although you may do that, too; I certainly do), but in your head? Psychologists who study the phenomenon say: …we don’t have to use full sentences to talk to ourselves, because we know … Continue reading →
A sample of Utopian leftist thought today: Part II, Richard D. Wolff and the ice cream cones
[NOTE: Part I can be found here.] In that same interview I wrote about in Part I, someone named Richard Wolff had a few things to say as well. Wolff’s academic credentials are impressive, if you’re impressed by that sort … Continue reading →
A few more thoughts on the subject of abortion
Last night I was looking up something about Charles Krauthammer, and I chanced to come across something he’d written in 1985 that I’d never seen before. It expresses some of his thoughts on abortion, and it struck me that it … Continue reading →
A sample of Utopian leftist thought today: Part I, Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists
Utopia for Realists. If that book title sounds like an oxymoron, it certainly doesn’t to its author Rutger Bregman: Imagining utopia, writes Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, “isn’t an attempt to predict the future. It’s an attempt to unlock the future. … Continue reading →
Conspiracy, conspiracy, who’s got the conspiracy?
Theory, that is. The funny thing about the ubiquity of conspiracy theories is that some of them are true. The trouble is figuring out which ones they might be, because the majority are not. Now that the Epstein death conspiracy … Continue reading →