“But this just shows that Žižek is right in that there is no such thing as seeing the world as it really is. There is always something that mediates perception.”
Tag: Essay
The Four Competing Approaches to Higher Education
“Many critics point out that this one dimensional approach to education helps produce citizens who are selfish, disinterested in politics, and unprepared for dealing with moral complexities, which are not reducible to cost-benefit analysis.”
Euripides: Oracle of Modernity
“Euripides’ gods are the gods of Hesiod given a new, cunning, and manipulative makeover. Furthermore, they are depicted as clear threats to the human social order.“
Taking Science Fiction Seriously
“Today, it is science fiction that often carried the torch of the utopian aspiration.”
Why Aeschylus Still Matters Today
“But Aeschylus’ cosmos goes beyond Homer’s in presenting Reason, Persuasion, as an integral aspect of the cosmos that was otherwise absent in Homer.”
Orwell and the Motives of “Socialists”
“The typical socialist often had very little concrete experience with the actual conditions facing those they purported to care about. They were often middle class, well educated, and highly resentful of the rich.”
Read more
Where Hayek and Marx Part Ways
“The most committed liberal would believe that perfection is unattainable, while the socialist would contend that it is not only possible but necessary.”
Where Tolstoy Departs from Dostoevsky
“Tolstoy was not naïve in thinking that social and political reform would end all forms of evil in human life. Like Dostoevsky, he was very well aware that much wickedness flowed from the pride and vanity of men like Napoleon or the Russian tsars.”
“Frozen Desire” By James Buchan: As Relevant Now As Ever
“The Romanticism of the 19th century was a direct response to not only the materialist underpinnings of the Enlightenment but also the increasingly monetary-centric worldview that subsumed all human relations.”
Kevin Williamson, “The Bard of Anti-Socialism”
“Perhaps Williamson’s own ability to overcome those obstacles has led him to underestimate how formidable a challenge they can pose, a clear example of upward mobility hardening the hearts of the precious few it bestows itself upon.”
Slavoj Žižek, Music, and the End of Capitalism
“The basic thought is that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
Dostoevsky’s Extremely Thoughtful Critique of the Left
“People do not truly want an end to suffering in all cases…They need challenges in order to feel the thrill of victory, guilt over their actions to have a chance at redemption, and the possibility of rejection and hatred to feel any deep form of love.”
Jordan Peterson’s Thinkspot and Public Utilities
“Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms are much more like churches or clubs than they are like a public plaza, regardless of their size.”
I Love a Black Ariel, But I Hate Identity Politics
“So, all those people that tweet #notmyariel are probably arguing that if Black Panther necessarily has to be black, Ariel necessarily has to be white.”
The Shallowness of the Intellectual Dark Web
“Edmund Burke’s arguments against the French Revolutionaries resonate because he understood the revolutionaries’ position quite well.”