True Excellence In Broadcasting

When a man of low character and dubious intelligence like Donald Rumsfeld has the gall to insinuate that his critics are appeasers to fascists, we could just ignore him or ridicule his apparent lack of irony. Some are not so charitable however, like this powerful rebuttal by Keith Olbermann shows. His quote from Murrow [...]

Libertarianism as a False Promise

Some of the most powerful rhetoric in the history of the world has come in the form of liberty as its own reward.  The Declaration of Independence is forever one of the primary examples of the universal desire to be free of tyranny.
Despite that compelling motive, freedom without wisdom and virtue, as Burke would say, is the [...]

Tribalism and Moral Bankruptcy II

This is the subject that just keeps on giving. One point I should have made in the previous post but failed to, was that tribalism infects both Right and Left sides of the political spectrum. In both cases it leads to tyranny, although the version adopted by Marxists is often more subtle and corrosive.
Hegel, who [...]

Tribalism and Moral Bankruptcy

The contention of the pre-Enlightenment thinker, as I understand it, is that the self in the modern world is not a whole person living in a vital community, but rather is an abstract ghost lost in the wilderness of individual rights. In medieval times, choice was not an option, all social duties and customs were [...]

Saturday Book Quote

Although I am certainly not a fan of his, Stephen King occasionally prints some worthwhile fiction. His short stories are usually his best ones, and The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger was the beginning of an epic story.
“Few if any seemed to have grasped the Principle of Reality; new knowledge leads always to yet more awesome [...]

Saturday Book Quote

From one of the most mind bending books I have ever read, today’s quote comes from Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly. Reading this book while suffering from insomnia could precipitate a mental collapse. For all the craziness and paranoia, it does contain some powerful lessons about Gestalt psychology.
“It requires the greatest kind of [...]

Philosophy and Humor

If you have not yet been enlightened by Monty Python, please study it now.  In a nutshell, this lecture as well as the body of work of Monty Python, explains the absurdity of language and the sheer comedy of most philosophy.
Where philosophy most often runs into trouble is in the two extremes of transcendence and [...]

Saturday Book Quote

“The answer, the justification, is the same for men as it is for gods.  Good or ill, say the sages, mean nothing for they are of Samsara.  Agree with the sages, who have taught our people for as far as the memory may reach.  Agree, but consider also a thing of which the sages do [...]

War Blogs

Two of my favorite writers on all things military: Pat Lang and Kingdaddy. Pat Lang is more of a technical analyst, while Kingdaddy is good at laying out strategy. I don’t recall where I saw or read this, but Lang applied for a job as an intelligence analyst for the Pentagon after 9/11. His [...]

Symbol, Intent, Consequence, Knowledge

As mentioned in an earlier post, we all engage in the activity called mapping. This activity allows us to designate symbols that guide us towards our expectations and provide meaning to the world. The symbols we use are only symbols, the intent and knowledge that gives them force is the relationships we are able to [...]