For Mencken, the common man was more Homer Simpson or Peter Griffith than anything resembling the idea of a thoughtful and engaged citizen. | Continue reading
Why did the Japanese resort to kamikaze tactics? I look at the reasons. | Continue reading
Simone Weil really wanted to go to war, to fight fascism, to be the main character, to die a martyr's death. It didn't go as planned. | Continue reading
A look at Alfred Kubin's troubled life, disturbing art, and his quest for meaning. | Continue reading
On Magellan's last days and the mistakes leading to his demise | Continue reading
Living during the Middle Ages was bad enough. Living as a Jew during the Middle Ages was even worse. Now factor in the Black Death. | Continue reading
Rediscovering the joy of good conversation made me realize just how bad it is out there. So of course I turned to Guy Debord for insights. | Continue reading
Ants are insects that engage in complicated social behavior. And yet they are like aliens. Could it be the same with us and aliens? | Continue reading
Descartes' philosophy foresaw the factory farm, Kant's the pet loving meat eater, and Darwin's the animal rights movement of recent years. | Continue reading
A look at Allan Savory's Holistic Planned Grazing. Can it really solve climate change as he claimed in his TED Talk? Nope. Here's why. | Continue reading
Four scenes that go deep and one that doesn't: Jacob's Ladder, The Great Dictator, The Grey, 1984, & Meatballs | Continue reading
Though it's hard to believe, Germany came out of WWI much better than it might have, especially compared to the war's other losers. | Continue reading
I'm 100% against book banning. Could I be wrong? Maybe some books should be banned. I take a look. | Continue reading
George Orwell hated totalitarianism in all forms. Everyone knows that. But he was also a committed socialist. What? | Continue reading
The Fermi Paradox, named after Italian physicist Erico Fermi, asks the very basic question, "Where are they?" I explore 4 possible answers. | Continue reading
On progress and the Brave New World where me, myself, and I reign supreme. | Continue reading
A look at three talented artists murdered by the Nazis: Charlotte Salomon, Franz Karl Bühler, and Felix Nussbaum. | Continue reading
William Golding's 1956 novel, Pincher Martin is about Christopher “Pincher” Martin, a British naval officer and former actor whose ship was torpedoed. He finds himself on a barren rock where his struggle to survive hides a darker truth - that he's already dead. Golding tells the … | Continue reading
Petain and Vichy remain remain symbols of national French shame. Does Petain deserve this condemnation? His defeatism in 1940 was widely shared by the French public. Why? Was the Vichy regime fascist? And if not, what shaped it ideologically? Finally, I examine the role of Petain … | Continue reading
Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658) was once a renowned Spanish writer and philosopher. What he's remembered for today is his book of aphorisms, called 'The Art of Worldly Wisdom,' which offers timeless advice on how to get by in a society hostile to culture and learning. One recurring … | Continue reading
Christine Nixey's The Darkening Age shows the dark side of early Christianity. One sadly amusing text from this era of holy nihilism was the Prakticos by Evagrius. In it he gives dire warnings about the Noonday Demon. Reading between the lines, we get a glimpse of human nature cr … | Continue reading
I recently tried out the Replika app where I could create and interact with an AI chatbot. This post discusses that mildly disorienting experience. I also look at how the Replika chatbot technology works, some of the user types I've come across, and where I think this technology … | Continue reading
In his 1902 book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, philosopher William James (1842-1910) offered a defense of religious experience from the personal level. James also harshly criticized a naturalistic, or atheist, view of the world. James thought atheism (or naturalism) can … | Continue reading
What did D.H. Lawrence have to say about sex? Quite a lot, actually. I take a look at Lady Chatterley's Lover to find some answers. | Continue reading
Was Hitler a good artist? Was his art any good? Hitler was a better artist than you might expect though he was never going to be a success in the dynamic fin-de-siecle European art scene that favored colors and abstract themes. Hitler preferred traditional art, and his paintings … | Continue reading
For me, collecting vinyl records began as an effort to connect with my son but then it evolved into a hobby we both enjoy. We're not the only ones to have benefited from the unlikely resurgence of vinyl in recent years. This essay reflects on my newfound love of vinyl records an … | Continue reading
Justinian's wars to retake territory in the old Roman west were harmful. This has long been the traditional view, though recently it's been challenged by some. Justinian's policies created a new, third front in Italy, North Africa, and southern Spain. This was in addition to the … | Continue reading
One of the most talented painters of the early twentieth century was German painter August Macke (1887-1914). His style of painting is loosely defined as "Expressionist," though he took influences from Kadinskyi's Blue Riders as well as Robert Delaunay's Orphism. What emerged was … | Continue reading
Paine's 'The Age of Reason' took America by storm in 1795 when both volumes were published. Paine's critique of traditional Christianity angered America's religious leaders. He ridiculed the Bible and mocked Christian beliefs like Christ's divinity, the Resurrection, and the Virg … | Continue reading
Is this an age of sleepwalkers? Routine bound, boredom trapped, cruising on autopilot, and catatonic - these are the days of our lives. | Continue reading
A look at Wittgenstein's "lost" years (1919-1926) when he worked as an elementary school teacher in rural Austria. How was Wittgenstein as a teacher? Both bad and good. What else was going on during these years? He worked on getting the Tractatus printed and published a children' … | Continue reading
The grisly story of a radical sect of zealots who took over Münster and created a communist, polygamous, theocratic, doomsday sex cult. | Continue reading
On the tendency to murder our secret selves and call it maturity. | Continue reading
The dramatic tale of Oscar Wilde's three trials and how they ruined his life, marriage, creativity, and finally, his health. Wilde let himself get caught in the middle of a quarrel between his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, and his lover's angry, homophobic father, the Marquess of Q … | Continue reading
What did Emerson have to say about reading and writing? An avid reader his entire life, Emerson's essay "American Scholar" offers some of his best advice on what type of reader we should be and how we should approach books. Emerson wanted us to not only read widely and often but … | Continue reading
In 1814 a young man named Edward Coles wrote to Thomas Jefferson seeking his advice on how best to end slavery. Jefferson's disappointing response and the reasons for it are the topics of this essay. Was Jefferson truly interested in ending slavery? In theory, yes, but in practic … | Continue reading
An inspirational poem on all the beauty in the world and how we must thank God for such perfection. Yes, indeed... | Continue reading
Walter Lippman, Neil Postman, Daniel Bell, and Marshall McLuhan all wrote about the impacts of technology on the way we interact with the world. Much of what they wrote still applies today as people increasingly immerse themselves in bubble realities that result in political and … | Continue reading
Poem for the daydream believers, or how the world loathes those who don't plug in, pay their attention taxes, and aren't "practical" enough. | Continue reading
In The Revolt of the Masses, Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset discussed the nature of the modern "mass-man" and the risks this mentality posed for the health of liberal democracy. Written in 1930, Ortega's thesis of the revolting masses is relevant today. Who is this Mass … | Continue reading
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides details the events of that war up to 411 BC. It has the famous "Melian Dialogue," a case study in political realism, as mighty Athens orders tiny Melos to submit to its rule. The Melians argue for fair play and justice. In this c … | Continue reading
Vasily Grossman's masterpiece Life and Fate was confiscated by the KGB in 1961. What was so controversial about his novel? What caused him so many problems with the Soviet authorities? I examine three of those themes voiced through marginal characters. We get Grossman's harsh cri … | Continue reading
Heraclius ruled the Byzantine empire for over three decades, bringing the empire back from the brink of defeat against the Sassanid Persians by personally leading his armies to victory deep in the Persian empire. His victory didn't last, however, as Muslim invaders exploded into … | Continue reading
What is Myrrh? Myrrh appears occasionally in the Bible, though most people have only a vague idea of what it is. But what is myrrh and what is it used for? And more interesting, what was the myth behind the spice? I look at Ovid's version of the Myrrha myth from his narrative poe … | Continue reading
The insights in Jacques Ellul's book The Technological Society still apply today. While others like Lewis Mumford, Ivan Illich, Neil Postman, and Yuval Harari, have written extensively about the impact of technology and technique on society, Ellul's simple insights remain relevan … | Continue reading