On stupidity and the excesses of wokeness
One of the first laws of human existence, or at least of existence in class societies (determined by anti-human institutions that mold...
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Sep 8, 202022 min read
From 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 min read
I wish stupidity were less common
This 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 min read
Gender 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 min read
A little misanthropy can be a healthy thing
This 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 min read
A plea for honesty in discussions of sex and gender
A recent article of mine, called "Political Correctness Is Getting Out of Hand," elicited some angry emails. Not from people who...
Jul 13, 20184 min read
Critical 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 min read
Against 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 min read
On "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 min read
Contemporary 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 min read
An underwhelming encounter with Christians
A 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 min read
Far-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 read
"False consciousness"
Leftists are sometimes criticized for being condescending toward the masses, for arguing that they are prone to displaying "false...
Aug 14, 20153 min read
On late-19th-century decadence and its aftermath
What is the significance of the fact that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries certain (semi-fascist) sections of the...
Aug 10, 20154 min read
The making of the working class
I'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 min read
Subversive 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 min read
Götzendämmerung
Albert Camus: “We [moderns] read more than we meditate. We have no philosophies but merely commentaries. This is what Étienne Gilson...
Apr 11, 20155 min read
The 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 min read
Anti-intellectual intellectuals
If intellectual curiosity means the desire to learn new things, encounter new ideas, explore and explain the world, then “intellectuals”...
Sep 27, 20143 min read
Radical human nature
The power of indoctrination is shown by the fact that most people don’t consider themselves radical leftists, socialists, or anarchists....
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