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With the Charlottesville and Rittenhouse trials both having recently concluded, it seems appropriate to discuss an important aspect of “Lady Justice” and her true, glorious identity that lurks behind the modern pseudo-myth.
The modern, normie conception of Lady Justice is as a woman holding scales and a sword, and most of all, blindfolded. (more…)
Illustration by the author
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In November of 2009, I had been living in St. Louis for nine years, and my apartment complex was in a suburb bordering the city. It had gone through a rough patch before I signed my lease, cleaning out drug dealers and such. My years there were quiet and orderly. The rent was reasonable, the location a ten-minute drive from my downtown job as a security guard, and the apartment was a cozy one-bedroom. (more…)
Giacomo Balla, Science Against Obscurantism, 1920
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Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here
My last essay ended with the observation that there are clear points of convergence between Kant’s thought and Heidegger’s. (more…)
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There’s a guy I used to be friends with on Twitter a few years ago. He was Jewish, but you would never guess. He would only mention it in passing once in a blue moon. (more…)
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If you are contemplating a pilgrimage to the George Floyd memorial site and wondering what kind of protective body armor you should wear, consider this from CNN: “Locals wanted it [at the intersection of Chicago Avenue and 38th Street in Minneapolis] to be a place of peace, justice, mourning, and healing. (more…)
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“Psychosis”: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
You wake up these mornings and ask yourself: how much worse is it going to get today? You skim a news story or an editorial coming out of the New York Times, Washington Post, or the Detroit Free Press. Or, perhaps you turn on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. Something is terribly wrong. You ask yourself: Where am I? In Moscow? Is it 1936? Why do I feel terror all around me? (more…)
Andrea del Sarto, The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1527.
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Officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all counts for the “murder” of the beatified George Floyd. The jury, consisting of only two white men among twelve, found him guilty within a matter of hours. It was a quick decision that sent a clear message to America: black lives matter more than yours.
Despite being denounced by nearly every law enforcement official in the country, Derek Chauvin is the face of American police. (more…)
StoneToss, Justice is Bind, 2021.
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Officer Derek Chauvin should not have been convicted for murder in the death of George Floyd. But the conviction comes as no surprise, because it comes at the end of a long list of things that shouldn’t have happened. (more…)
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John Ford’s last great film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) enjoys the status of a classic. I find it a deeply flawed, grating, and often ridiculous film that is nonetheless redeemed both by raising intellectually deep issues and by an emotionally powerful ending that seems to come out of nowhere. (more…)
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Dirty Harry (1971) is a compelling neo-noir thriller about San Francisco Police Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), who is increasingly forced to choose between liberal legal norms and bringing a sadistic serial killer known as Scorpio to justice. Once Harry kills Scorpio, the movie ends (more…)
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Dirty Harry (1971), directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood as San Francisco Police Inspector Harry Callahan, is a classic of Right-wing cinema. Dirty Harry was hugely popular with moviegoers, spawning four sequels and a whole genre of films about tough cops whose hands are tied by the system and are forced to go outside the law in order to protect the public.
Dirty Harry articulated the growing reaction to the racial unrest, hippy degeneracy, and liberal mush of the 1960s, (more…)
Promotional image from the UK’s Almeida Theatre production of The Duchess of Malfi (performed from November 30, 2019 through January 25, 2020)
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I. Classical Western Thought on Justice and Revenge
One of the most fascinating discussions to emerge from our collective Western inheritance concerns the definition of justice and the double-sided nature of justice or vengeance (personified memorably in pop culture through the literal “two-faced” character of Harvey Dent and his Janus-faced coin). Aristotle (384-322 BC) determined that “justice” had at least two different meanings: (more…)