To regard the immorality of the will as an imperfection of it would be a fundamentally false point of view. — Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea (more…)
Author: Mark Gullick
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May 5, 2022 Mark Gullick
Stay Free: The Scythian Conversation
Anacharsis wrote about the laws existing among the Scythians, and also about those in force among the Greeks, urging men to adopt a temperate course of life, and he wrote also about war, his works being in verse, and amounting to eight hundred lines: (more…)
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1,751 words
A rose by any other name
When I was growing up, or at least getting bigger, my parents were fairly liberal about swearing in the house. “Cussing” is, I believe, an American equivalent. This was not an injunction for or against swearing an oath on the Bible. But rules are rules, and there was always one word banned in our house: the dread C-word. How nice to be reminded of this childhood memory by Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), still wasting money after all these years. They have indeed banned the C-word. (more…)
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Today we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery [the press] that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. — Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West (more…)
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The poets and dreamers wove their magic webs, and a world apart from the world of actual experience came to life. But it was not all myth, nor all fantasy; there was a basis of truth and reality at the foundation of the mystic growth . . . — Jessie Weston, From Ritual to Romance
My friend said, what are you doing these days? I said, I’m working for Killing Joke. He said, Killing Joke? Are you mad? They’re evil. They’re devil-worshippers. — Chris Kimsey, music producer (more…)
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Czech version here
I call for an immediate ban on the movie Gravity as it shows “Earth” to be spherical, which is against the Quran, and thus insulting to Muslims. — Dr. Zakir Naik
Robert R. Reilly
The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis
Wilimington, Del: ISI Books, 2010 (more…) -
2,898 words
Ukraine? The brochure looks nice
It is not clear that the British government quite understands the habits of the mercenary soldier. After its dithering Foreign Secretary Liz Truss indicated that British citizens were free, should they so wish, to go to Ukraine and fight against Russia, she sympathized with these would-be Lord Byrons. Her staff reminded both her and the men ‘o war of the latest travel advice on its website: (more…)
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Simon Reynolds
Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978-84
London: Faber, 2005In January 1978 British band XTC released their debut album. Punk rock in the United Kingdom had passed its zenith but there were many such acts, clearly not punk but propelled to the forefront of the music scene by the effects punk had had on commercial music. (more…)
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I have been reading the work of H. P. Lovecraft, who passed away on March 15, 1937, longer than that of any other author. I still own my copy of a book which, appropriate to Lovecraft, is itself a mystery. My name is inscribed on the inside cover, and I would have been about 13 when I read this opening sentence: “North of Arkham the hills rise dark, wild, and wooded, and much overgrown, an area through which the Miskatonic flows seaward, almost at one boundary of the wooded tract.” (more…)
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3,363 words
We need to talk about race. This is an interesting sentence in that it could be uttered with sincerity by someone from either end of the political spectrum. From a far-Left perspective, as we are well aware to the point of nausea, it means we need to talk about race all the time. (more…)
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In 1951, Simone de Beauvoir published the first part of a two-part essay entitled “Faut il Brûler Sade?” or “Must We Burn Sade?” in which she attempted to extract something from the texts of the notorious Marquis other than violent pornography. Roland Barthes would attempt a similar exercise two years later in Le degré zéro de l’écriture (Writing Degree Zero), as would another French writer who, in our ideologically divided age, arouses as much horror in certain quarters as de Sade did more generally in his own time: Jacques Derrida. But perhaps here is a heretic for whom we must pause at the stake and ask, must we burn Derrida? (more…)
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2,660 words
Late to the party
There seems to be a political axiom whereby it is clear that a party or its leaders are in trouble when they start doing things, or at least start talking about doing things, which the majority of people actually want done. Thus, we see Angela Rayner, the blowsy Deputy Shadow Prime Minister, “talking tough” (translated from politico, that means horse-shitting) on crime. Ms. Rayner recently called Tories “scum” on social media. I don’t know where she thinks these mythical Tories are, but they certainly aren’t in the Conservative Party. (more…)
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2,644 words
The decline of the West is still in the first slow phase, but at some point it might speed up dramatically. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations & the Remaking of World Order
In 1993, academic and White House strategist Samuel P. Huntington wrote a piece for the American geopolitical journal Foreign Affairs entitled “The Clash of Civilizations?” Three years later, Huntington dropped the “generally ignored question mark” and expanded his work into a book. (more…)