Alexey Nechvaloda’s reconstruction of a Yamnaya man
2,130 words
Europe’s distinct ancestral heritage can be traced to the Yamnaya culture, an equestrian martial patriarchy that formed in the Caspian region and moved into what is now Northern India, Western China, Persia, and Europe. The cultures that were the offspring of the Yamnaya migrations are referred to as Indo-European, due to their linguistic, cultural, and genetic connectedness.
Indo-European peoples include the Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Persians, Hittites, and the Celtic and Germanic peoples indigenous to the British Isles. (more…)
Canaletto, The Return of the Bucentaur to the Molo on Ascension Day, 1730.
1,648 words
On the train ride home this weekend, I ended up talking with a drunk woman about the concept of happiness. Although brief, the conversation reminded me of Giacomo Casanova’s memoir The Story of My Life. As I have gotten older, this memoir has reminded me not to let certain vices ruin my life. While each person (more…)
4,673 words
To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.
— Napoleon Bonaparte
I grew up in the final years of the Cold War. If you aren’t old enough to remember the Cold War, let me tell you that it was a trip.
(more…)
2,484 words
Over the past years, I’ve made some efforts to keep fit and educate myself in the manly arts. So far, I’ve been able to slim down, quit smoking, quit porn, moderate my caffeine and alcohol intake, (more…)
Bust of Epicurus
1,291 words
Trans. Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
The following is drawn from Pierre Hadot, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique ? (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), 191-96. Some non-English secondary sources have been removed from Hadot’s footnotes. The title is editorial.
To achieve the healing of the soul and a life in accord with the fundamental [Epicurean] choice, it is not enough to have learned the Epicurean philosophical discourse. (more…)
2,055 words
The other day, as I was wandering through an IKEA store as family members were finishing up shopping, I saw a young white woman with a striking T-shirt. She wasn’t overtly pretty, nor was she ugly. She wasn’t skinny and she wasn’t fat. But during the five or six seconds we shared in the same section of the store, I could determine a few things about her. (more…)
1,549 words
Imagine a world where people live so devoid of happiness that it becomes a popular pastime to compensate by simply watching recordings of people smiling. The need is so severe that when making these recordings, no one even bothers to build in a plot—they just get right to the action of depicting images of people smiling, utterly devoid of any further context or deeper meaning. (more…)
1,299 words
Translated by G. A. Malvicini
A frequently discussed issue among Right-wing circles is the new generation and its relations with the previous one; “revolutionary” youth in relation to the men and ideas of the Fascist period. Some, in this regard, believe that the same phenomenon is met with here that can be observed more generally: the new generation no longer understands the generation that preceded it, the accelerated pace of events having interposed between the one and the other a mental distance much larger than that which in other times normally would have separated them. (more…)
40:21 / 156 words
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Beginning in August of 1999, I gave a series of eight lectures on “The Pursuit of Happiness: Philosophies East and West,” (more…)
53:16 / 149 words
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Beginning in August of 1999, I gave a series of eight lectures on “The Pursuit of Happiness: Philosophies East and West,” (more…)
2,198 words
Here’s a sign that the feces-slinging partisan playpen that is the Internet is getting to you: I caught myself feeling decidedly strange as I made plans to write this tandem review of an essay collection by Andy Nowicki—a devout Catholic—and Valencia
, an autobiographical novel by James Nulick, whose protagonist catches AIDS during a gay-sex-and-crack binge.
“Who’s going to want to read about both of them?” said my stupid brain. (more…)
7,661 words
English original here
Pulp Fiction Quentina Tarantina se řadí k mým nejoblíbenějším filmům. Nechtěl jsem, aby se mi líbil – původně jsem na něj dokonce ani nechtěl jít. Podle všeho co jsem o něm slyšel, jsem film měl za naprosto nihilistický a dosti odpudivý počin. Pak ale někdo na večírku popsal Pulp Fiction jako film o „velikosti duše na konci historie“, což mě zaujalo, protože jsem zrovna asi po tisící pročítal Platónovu Ústavu – (more…)
Hieronymus Bosch, « Le jardin des délices terrestres », panneau de droite, détail
1,285 words
English original here
« Postmodernisme » est l’un de ces mots passe-partout académiquement à la mode, comme « paradigme » qui s’est maintenant répandu dans le discours moyennement intellectuel et même peu intellectuel. (more…)
28:24 / 154 words
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Beginning in August of 1999, I gave a series of eight lectures on “The Pursuit of Happiness: (more…)
32:49 / 334 words
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In August of 1999, I started an eight-week lecture course called “What Socrates Knew: Plato on Art, Wisdom, and Happiness.” (more…)
49:17 / 335 words
Audio Version: To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save target or link as.”
To subscribe to our podcasts, click here. (more…)
31:11 / 335 words
Audio Version: To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save target or link as.”
To subscribe to our podcasts, click here. (more…)
30:08 / 395 words
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Note: After a long hiatus, we will be running philosophy lectures on Wednesdays again. (more…)
Hieronymus Bosch, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” right panel, detail
1,155 words
French translation here
“Postmodernism” is one of those academically fashionable weasel words like “paradigm” that have now seeped into middlebrow and even lowbrow discourse. Those of us who have fundamental and principled critiques of modernity quickly learned that postmodernism is not nearly postmodern enough. (more…)
3,817 words
Part 2 of 2
Read Part 1 here
The Gold Watch
We first encounter boxer Butch Coolidge at the beginning of Part 3, “Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife.” The setting is a tittie bar owned by Marsellus Wallace. (more…)
8,354 words
Parts 1 & 2; Czech translation here
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
is one of my favorite movies. I didn’t want to like it. I didn’t even want to see it. Everything I’d heard made me think it would be thoroughly nihilistic and quite unpleasant. But then someone at a party described Pulp Fiction as a movie about “greatness of soul at the end of history,” and that caught my attention, (more…)
and the forthcoming title by Sarah Perry, 