Republican officers inspect Soviet armor in Spain

2,525 words

The uprising of General Francisco Franco against the Leftist Republican Spanish government began in July of 1936. The fratricidal bloodbath that was the Spanish Civil War ended on April 1, 1939, with the Republican surrender to Franco’s Nationalist forces. The history of that conflict deserves intense, careful scrutiny, and for a number of reasons. (more…)

Allan Ramsey, David Hume, 1766.

5,513 words

A Very Bad Year

2020 was a bad year for David Hume (1711-1776). Leftists in the United Kingdom, eager to get in on the feast of outrage that followed the drug overdose of George Floyd, complained that David Hume was a racist and should therefore not be revered. And then things went more or less as you would expect. (more…)

Curt Stoeving, Friedrich Nietzsche, 1894.

1,994 words

The French philosopher René Descartes was a worried man. His concern was that his memory resembled a sheet of paper that was constantly being written over with his experiences, with facts and events. Realizing that it is in the nature of paper eventually to become filled with writing, he avoided wherever possible being told extraneous facts for fear that insufficient room would remain in his mind for things of importance to this polymath. Thus, he hoped to avoid the fate of Homer. Homer Simpson, that is. (more…)

2,272 words

Nature is a temple, where the living
Columns sometimes breathe of confusing speech;
Man walks within these groves of symbols, each
Of which regards him as a kindred thing.

— Charles Baudelaire, “Correspondence” (more…)

1,583 words

A Vice article published on Tuesday has reignited the debate over whether racism (or “pathological bias,” to use the clinical term proposed by psychiatrists) should be considered a mental illness and included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In turn, I would like to raise the question of whether pathological xenophilia should be considered a mental illness. (more…)

1,876 words

Give me racist liberalism, or give me death!

— Patrick Henry, probably.

To be in the Dissident Right is to be part of an informal initiatic society. There are various levels of being with it — there’s always another redpill to take. (more…)

1,564 words

Ad Astra (2019), starring Brad Pitt and directed by James Gray, is the best science fiction movie since Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014). Like Interstellar, Ad Astra is visually striking and emotionally powerful, stimulating to both thought and imagination, and unfolds at a leisurely pace—all traits inviting comparisons to Kubrick and Tarkovsky, although I hasten to add that I found both Ad Astra and Interstellar so absorbing that my attention never wavered. (more…)

2,342 words

We are living in an age of dissolution. Every institution of government and society is in a state of seemingly terminal decline. At the individual level the notions of honor, personal responsibility, and self-sacrifice have largely vanished from public life. The cause of this malaise is not material inequality, but the collapse of faith. (more…)

2,599 words

Czech translation here

Ridley Scott’s 1982 movie Blade Runner is a science fiction classic and surely the director’s finest work. Blade Runner excels on all levels. It is a highly imaginative vision of the future realized with a stunning visual style. The script is intelligent, even poetic. The cast is uniformly strong, with a number of powerful performances, particularly Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty. The gripping action sequences are acrobatic, balletic, and brutal. But the key to the film’s unsettling emotional power is its deep mythic subtext. (more…)

2,491 words

Aaron Clarey
The Curse of the High IQ
CreateSpace, 2016

What’s it like to have nothing to lean on in this bleak world but nihilism?

Aaron Clarey’s new book, The Curse of the High IQ, takes an exceedingly unromantic look at the misfit misery of being too smart. (more…)

1,397 words

English original here

Tidigt en kväll i slutet av 1999 befann sig en nära vän till mig i en taxi i närheten av sitt hem. Han tittade ut och såg en gammal kvinna ligga på rygg på infarten till sitt hus med ett plågat och hjälplöst ansiktsuttryck. Bredvid henne stod två hundar och skällde. (more…)

1,147 words

Trevor Blake
Confessions of a Failed Egoist, and Other Essays
Baltimore: Underworld Amusements, 2014

Fred Wilkes
The Gospel According to Malfew Seklew: and Other Writings By and About Sirfessor Wilkesbarre
Ed. Kevin I. Slaughter, Introduction by Trevor Blake
Baltimore: Underworld Amusements, 2014  (more…)

1,556 words

“Spinoza was neither an optimist nor a pessimist. He neither laughed at life nor grieved over it. It is possible that he understood it.” —Edgar Saltus, The Anatomy of Negation

After making something of an effort to keep up with the terrific output of Vox Day’s Castalia House imprint, I’m now poking my nose into Kevin Slaughter’s doings over at his Underworld Amusements publishing venture. (more…)

1,355 words

English original here

Temprano una tarde a fines de 1999, un amigo cercano estaba en un taxi cerca de su casa. Miró por la ventanilla del coche y observó a una anciana acostada sobre su espalda en su entrada para el auto, una angustiada y desesperanzada mirada en su cara. Dos perros ladrando estaban a su lado. (more…)

1,420 words

Translations: Spanish, Swedish

Early one evening in late 1999, a close friend was in a taxi near his home. He looked out the car window and saw an old woman lying on her back in her driveway, an anguished, helpless look on her face. Two barking dogs stood beside her. (more…)

2,640 words

English original here

Film Ridleyho Scotta z roku 1982 Blade Runner se řadí mezi klasická díla sci-fi žánru a představuje vrchol tvorby slavného britského režiséra. Blade Runner vyniká ve všech ohledech. Jedná se o velice nápaditou vizi budoucnosti, uskutečněnou v dechberoucím vizuálním provedení. Herci předvádí solidní výkony, někteří pak až výjimečné – především Rutger Hauer jako Roy Batty. Napínavé akční scény jsou akrobatické, baletní a brutální. Klíč k pochopení znepokojivé emocionální působivosti díla však spočívá v jeho hlubokém mytickém podtextu. (more…)

391 words

Editor’s Note:

Although Instauration pieces are not signed, based on style and content, I believe this obituary for Martin Heidegger was written by Wilmot Robertson.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

As far as we know there is only one atheistic philosopher whose thought ever triggered religious resonances in the soul of his readers. (more…)

1,711 words

Albert Camus’ The Stranger had a powerful effect on me when I first read it at the age of 18. Recently I had cause to pick it up again when I re-read Bill Hopkins’ The Leap! (a.k.a. The Divine and the Decay) with the aim of writing an essay on it. Hopkins’ manner of constructing a plot out of seemingly trivial, tedious, and disconnected events that suddenly come together in an emotionally shattering climax — a climax that seems utterly surprising yet in hindsight utterly inevitable — brought to mind The Stranger.  (more…)

2,593 words

Czech translation here

Ridley Scott’s 1982 movie Blade Runner is a science fiction classic and surely the director’s finest work. Blade Runner excels on all levels. It is a highly imaginative vision of the future realized with a stunning visual style. The script is intelligent, even poetic. The cast is uniformly strong, with a number of powerful performances, particularly Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty. The gripping action sequences are acrobatic, balletic, and brutal. But the key to the film’s unsettling emotional power is its deep mythic subtext. (more…)

1,304 words

Suomentanut Jukka Hakola

English original here

(more…)

Luca Signorelli, “Empedocles,” Orvieto Cathedral, 1502

6,530 words

Part 2 of 2

Author’s Note:

The following text is a transcript by V. S. of a lecture on the presocratic background of Aristophanes’ Clouds. (more…)

Thales, Union Station, Washington, D.C.

6,614 words

Author’s Note:

The following text is a transcript by V. S. of a lecture on the presocratic background of Aristophanes’ Clouds. I have edited this transcript to remove excessive wordiness, and I have added section headings and transitions. I found it sobering to read this transcript, for I discovered just how widely the written and spoken word vary, and how flabby my lectures are compared to my writings.  

(more…)

48:29 / 435 words

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Topics discussed in this second and final installment on the philosophical background of Aristophanes’ Clouds:  (more…)

48:45 / 408 words

Audio Version: To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save target as.”

To subscribe to our podcasts, click here.

Transcript here

In September and October of 1998, I gave a course of eight, two-hour lectures on “The Trial of Socrates.” (more…)

William Blake, “Isaac Newton,” 1795

1,527 words

Science is not meant to be a religion or a worldview, although the scientific outlook does influence one’s worldview, which is why so many scientists are atheists. The scientific outlook is empirical, depends on evidence and experiment, and is hostile to the idea of “faith” – (more…)

1,837 words

Finnish translation here

I was an atheist from as early as I was thinking deep thoughts up until about five years ago. I preferred the label “skeptic” because it distanced myself from the connotations tied to the word “atheism”: (more…)

3,674 words

English original here

L’Occident et ses peuples peuvent-ils être sauvés ? Et que faudra-t-il pour cela – en particulier si nous recherchons une solution à long terme plutôt qu’une dernière digue « provisoire » ? Une nouvelle Haute Culture de l’Occident peut-elle naître pour assurer l’existence des peuples de l’Occident pour une longue durée ? Quelles caractéristiques une telle nouvelle culture devrait-elle posséder ?

(more…)

3,238 words

English original here

Pode o Ocidente e seus povos serem salvos? E o que será preciso para isso – particularmente se nós estamos preocupados com uma solução a longo prazo ao invés de um mero “quebra-molas”? Pode uma nova Alta Cultura do Ocidente emergir para garantir a existência dos povos do Ocidente por um longo tempo? Que características deve tal nova cultura possuir?

(more…)

1,190 words

The most interesting thing about the writers of TOQ isn’t why we write, but why we came to write from the perspective that we have. Wanting to express oneself in print isn’t that rare. High IQ people have their journals and books while even the less intelligent have MySpace. (more…)

3,313 words

Translations: French, Portuguese

Can the West and its peoples be saved? And what will this take–particularly if we are concerned with a long-term solution rather than a last ditch “stop gap?” Can a new High Culture of the West arise to secure the existence of the peoples of the West for an extended time frame? What characteristics should such a new culture have?

(more…)