Tag: friend/enemy dichotomy

2,426 words

“Moral judgements and condemnations constitute the favorite revenge against those less limited.”

                                      —Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

When thinking in general terms about how people, individually or in collectives, react to what they perceive as threats to the status quo, what comes to my mind is the question of toleration. How much threatening change one is willing to tolerate is a challenge that tests one’s commitment to his principles and measures the reservoirs of one’s courage.

Toleration, in my view, is a difficult concept to get a fix on. (more…)

1,002 words

Because I am not particularly familiar with American non-alt conservatism—nor with the minor figures and initiatives associated with the GOP—I was mostly unaware of Charlie Kirk as a political personality. And yet, his outrageous and untimely death at Utah Valley University compels commentary, not only because it was a death provoked by the battle of ideas, but also because of the disturbing chain of consequences it has unleashed. (more…)

2,196 words

There are probably few political theorists who have been as systematically misread as Carl Schmitt. Perhaps this is the destiny of any thinker whose influence extends well beyond his academic field, but Schmitt’s revival among the online right in recent years has produced especially crude appropriations. (more…)

1,966 words

The struggle against every form of anti-Semitism — from the Left and Islamically motivated — it is our governmental and civic obligation . . . Der Kampf gegen jede Form von Judenfeindlichkeit — von rechts, von links und islamistisch motiviert — ist unsere staatliche und bürgerschaftliche Pflicht . . . (more…)

1,700 words

It is the season of giving, and in that spirit I would like to give a Christmas present to the Christians within our ranks as a gesture of good will. Due to the Brandon economy, I do not have any partridges or pear trees, but I do have two arguments that can be used in defense of our politics by Christian Nationalists: Descartes’ cogito ergo sum and the differentiation between the private and public spheres. And what’s more, they are arguments that can operate entirely within the Christian worldview. (more…)

1,701 words

The propaganda is ripe today in my country, though it has been this way all my life. It isn’t until now, however, that it has become so flagrant and out in the open that everyone in their right mind can see it. Unfortunately, the number of insane people seems to be higher than ever, and an ever greater portion of people in the so-called “home of the brave” pretend to be asleep in the hope that, if they don’t see the monster, it won’t see them.

It’s gotten to a point where I have begun to ask myself: Do people actually believe this garbage anymore? (more…)

Thomas Hobbes

2,378 words

“Can’t we all just get along?” — Rodney King

“[M]en have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company, where there is no power to over-awe them all.” — Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes. For anyone who has a serious interest in fathoming the depths of human nature as it relates to the engagement with political power and the sources of human conflict, reading Thomas Hobbes is an exhilarating experience. (more…)

2,480 words

“War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others free.” — Heraclitus

Compliance measures and social trust are two key elements in any society, the ratio of which is a good indicator of how productive the people in it are and what the level of the general welfare looks like. Compliance measures usually come with threats to motivate compliant responses.

As compliance measures multiply, so do the threats that back them up. (more…)

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David Lean (1908–1991) directed sixteen movies, fully half of them classics, including three of the greatest films ever made: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and, greatest of them all, Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Lawrence of Arabia is repeatedly ranked as one of the finest films of all time, and when one compares it to such overpraised items as Citizen Kane and Casablanca, a strong case can be made for putting it at the very top of the list. (more…)

Oscar Benavides

1,045 words

For my friends, anything.
For my enemies, the law.

That epigram is attributed to a fellow named Oscar Benavides. Señor Benavides during the 1930s was the President of a Banana Republic with the official name of Peru. I stumbled across this cynical, but candid stab at a compressed management philosophy recently and concluded that it should be the entirety of Joe Biden’s Inaugural Address later this January. (more…)

Johann Peter Krafft, The Siege of Szigetvár, 1825.

5,125 words

The bad news is the bad news — the stories we’ve seen and heard in the past few months, years, decades that all keep warning us of more to come. The good news is that these times of transition provide us with opportunities for clarity and fresh perspectives on historical and social phenomena (more…)

2,947 words

Contrary to conventional wisdom, race isn’t a concept, construct, or any other type of trite postmodern abstraction, but rather a scientifically-proven, biological fact. (more…)