thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb I noticed a blogger denouncing the Pope for unspecified comments on immigration during his current visit to America, and sent him the following email:
… More ...Dear Mr. Lillpop,
What did the Pope say that you object to?
So far as I can tell from Joe Guzzardi’s piece at
http://vdare.com/guzzardi/080418_pope.htm
all the Pope did was (1) say
“Coolness” is an odd sort of thing. It’s a little ridiculous for someone over the age of 40 or so to notice or comment on it. He should have something better to do, people will say, and he’s going to get it wrong anyway.
Still, it’s an ideal of life that does have some authority … More ...
What do you say in response to a theory of things that is simplified to the point of absurdity: that asserts that existence is an illusion, or physical objects do not exist, or language is all a rhetorical power-game, or mathematical objects are only physiological states of someone’s brain? Some possibilities:
I just watched 12 Angry Men, supposedly one of the top 100 movies of all time, on DVD. Before watching it told my wife that I thought based on reputation that it was going to be “improving.” Now that I’ve watched it I suppose I must be improved.
Movie-wise, it’s not exactly up there … More ...
You might as well ask what it means to speak of any other basic reality. What does it mean to speak of time, space, number, particularity, universality, good, evil, or other minds? We use such concepts, and accept and comment on the things they denote, but explanations of exactly what they are never completely satisfy.… More ...
The discussion of the once and future paleoconservatism continues at Taki’s Magazine, with contributions from Daniel Larison and Richard Spencer. Larison seems to think that the new will be much the same as the old, while Spencer seems to identify with a sort of rambunctuous and generally nationalist individualism that perhaps can fuel … More ...
Paul Gottfried says the paleo movement is dead, and calls for youth to take over in the form of a post-paleo movement based on true American conservatism, which is the constitutional liberalism once represented by Taft Republicanism. He sees signs of such a development in the Ron Paul campaign, and in the writings of … More ...
When people complain about stupidity they mean that someone is willfully ignoring—or mindlessly oblivious to—the obvious. Whether something is obvious depends on your general understanding of things. So to say something is stupid, when it’s something other people insist on, is to say that (1) it’s based on an understanding you reject, and (2) there’s … More ...
Recent claims that Christianists are taking over are usually no more than expressions of shock that general cultural Christianity is taking a while to fall apart completely, but this, this, and this, on the growing influence of evangelical Christianity in the military, seems different. An effective imperial army needs a soldiers’ religion—the … More ...
Is one motive for our rulers’ aversion to immigration restrictions the thought that if you have them that suggests there’s a particular people to whom you have special obligations and that has the right to tell you what to do? If you have easy immigration it seems clear that you’re not subordinated to anybody in … More ...