Moved by a passion they don't understand for a goal they seldom reach,
people are haunted by the vision of a distant possibility
that refuses to be extinguished.
Nathaniel Branden
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The Continuing Inquisitions
Some who complain about the Inquisition and witches being burned at the stake enjoy doing their own heresy-hunting.
They advocate tolerance but are intolerant of anyone who disagrees with them. They are themselves dogmatic, fanatical, paranoid, and of course ---surprise!--- anti-intellectual.
Especially when someone calls their philosophical bluff.
They advocate tolerance but are intolerant of anyone who disagrees with them. They are themselves dogmatic, fanatical, paranoid, and of course ---surprise!--- anti-intellectual.
Especially when someone calls their philosophical bluff.
Friday, October 05, 2007
No End In Sight
My writings will never be finished. I write things and then later on think they're immature.
But to stop writing because of the endless reconstruction would be to fall for the entropic fallacy, the same false assumption that general pessimism depends on. So in spite of imminent entropic doom and the world situation, I'm somehow just as hopeful as I've ever been.
Impatience to better my situation caused a number of problems, but they were also by-products of just morally and spiritually rethinking issues. That slow process of change began long ago when I asked a few key questions, thereafter wanting to free myself and my mind from authority and bias, and continued until I braved the woes and interrogated what I assume in those questions.
Now I resolutely face the worst and reject almost like breathing the authority of anything merely established or traditional while trying to develop my own habits that measure up to the standards I've chosen, such as freedom, humaneness, and rational criticism.
I also realize now that I alone am responsible for controlling my life , and no other human authority. It's up to me alone to avoid suffering, sickness, and death so that I can pursue my goals as much as possible while I have the time.
Of course, this personal revolution has carried with it certain self-destructive powers.
But they may yet be comfortably subdued by a wiser ascendancy.
But to stop writing because of the endless reconstruction would be to fall for the entropic fallacy, the same false assumption that general pessimism depends on. So in spite of imminent entropic doom and the world situation, I'm somehow just as hopeful as I've ever been.
Impatience to better my situation caused a number of problems, but they were also by-products of just morally and spiritually rethinking issues. That slow process of change began long ago when I asked a few key questions, thereafter wanting to free myself and my mind from authority and bias, and continued until I braved the woes and interrogated what I assume in those questions.
Now I resolutely face the worst and reject almost like breathing the authority of anything merely established or traditional while trying to develop my own habits that measure up to the standards I've chosen, such as freedom, humaneness, and rational criticism.
I also realize now that I alone am responsible for controlling my life , and no other human authority. It's up to me alone to avoid suffering, sickness, and death so that I can pursue my goals as much as possible while I have the time.
Of course, this personal revolution has carried with it certain self-destructive powers.
But they may yet be comfortably subdued by a wiser ascendancy.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Devil Made Me Lose It
Welfare states have existed for long periods of time without the development of a modern underclass. The missing factor was ideas.
Human behavior cannot be explained without referring to the meaning and intentions people give to what they do and do not do. Everyone has a world view, whether they realize it or not.
And their ideas are the source of their misery.
Their ideas are revealed in the language they use, in the frequent remarks of passivity, for example. An alcoholic, explaining their conduct while drunk, will say, "The beer went crazy." A heroin addict, explaining their resort to the needle, will say, "Heroin's everywhere." The beer drank the alcoholic and the heroin injected the addict.
Other remarks serve an exculpatory function and reveal a denial of agency and therefore of personal responsibility. The murderer claims the knife went in or the gun went off. The person who attacks their sexual consort claims that they "went into a rage" or "lost it", as if they were the victim of a kind of epilepsy of which it is the doctor's duty to cure them. Until the cure, they can continue to abuse their consort, for such abuse has advantages for them, safe in the knowledge that they, not their consort, are the true victim.
from Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass, by Theodore Dalrymple
Human behavior cannot be explained without referring to the meaning and intentions people give to what they do and do not do. Everyone has a world view, whether they realize it or not.
And their ideas are the source of their misery.
Their ideas are revealed in the language they use, in the frequent remarks of passivity, for example. An alcoholic, explaining their conduct while drunk, will say, "The beer went crazy." A heroin addict, explaining their resort to the needle, will say, "Heroin's everywhere." The beer drank the alcoholic and the heroin injected the addict.
Other remarks serve an exculpatory function and reveal a denial of agency and therefore of personal responsibility. The murderer claims the knife went in or the gun went off. The person who attacks their sexual consort claims that they "went into a rage" or "lost it", as if they were the victim of a kind of epilepsy of which it is the doctor's duty to cure them. Until the cure, they can continue to abuse their consort, for such abuse has advantages for them, safe in the knowledge that they, not their consort, are the true victim.
from Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass, by Theodore Dalrymple