Jean-Jacques Rousseau, left, and David Hume.
3,901 words
“No good deed goes unpunished,” as the old saw goes. It puts a cynical, waggish twist on the perspicacious observation that acts of genuine generosity and kindness too often come to grief. Benefactors beware! Shades of Thomas Hobbes: “Man to man is a wolf.” (more…)
2,076 words
Seth David Radwell
American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation
Austin: Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2021
It is no secret that the American political scene is polarized. The last two election cycles have brought considerable political violence — most fueled by the Democratic Party and its mainstream media enablers. Recently, Seth Radwell, a Manhattan businessman, took several years off work to write a book that explores this divide. (more…)
German school in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 1866
1,455 words
Where do decent white folks go from here, when it’s all but too late?
What is their life going to be like when the demographic scales are tipped and the usual pathways to success and respect are blocked by the unforgiving, power-thirsty trolls drunk on woke? (more…)
1974 West German Bundespost stamp, commemorating Kant’s 250th birthday
5,568 words
Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here
1. Introduction
In the previous essay in this series, we saw Heidegger claiming that Leibniz “prepares” the completion of the metaphysical tradition, but that it is Nietzsche who actually brings it about. I will devote a future essay to Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche, but we may note here that the completion of metaphysics would have been impossible without Kant, who answers Leibniz and inadvertently prepares the way for Nietzsche. (more…)
Dimitar Pandilov, Harvesters, 1936.
2,226 words
Let’s talk about nationalism.
You’ve probably been told that there are two kinds of nationalism: ethnic and civic. This is true. You’ve probably been told that nationalism is a Left-wing phenomenon. This is partially true. (more…)
Hieronymus Bosch, Outer Wings of the Garden of Delights, ca. 1510.
4,305 words
1. Introduction: From Objectivism to Subjectivism
In the previous two installments (Part Three here, Part Four here) we have discussed at length Heidegger’s treatment of the “objectification of beings” in early modernity: how beings come to be seen as “objects” related to a “subject” that confronts them (indirectly) from within an interior space that is called “mind,” “awareness,” or even “self.” This objectification is essentially identical with the representationalist theory of knowledge, which holds that we are only indirectly aware of the “external world,” via internal images which “represent” external objects. So far, however, this may not be the account of modernity that my readers were expecting. (more…)
Phil Eiger Newmann, Beethoven, 2020.
2,640 words
Today is the 250th anniversary of the christening of Ludwig van Beethoven, a titan of classical music and one of the greatest composers of all time. Beethoven transformed every genre in which he wrote and singlehandedly changed the trajectory of classical music. Rooted in the Classical idiom of Mozart and Haydn, he paved the way for the Romantic era and influenced composers such as Brahms, Liszt, and Wagner. His works remain cornerstones of the classical repertoire. (more…)
White students pondering over a Herbert Marcuse lecture on the “one-dimensional mind” of the white race.
1,364 words
No one knows Friedrich Julius Stahl (1802-1861). He was a legal philosopher of Jewish parentage who converted to Christianity and became a defender of Prussian Lutheran conservatism against the imposition of Enlightenment values. He rejected Hegel’s argument (more…)
4,781 words
Sometime in the early 2000s, the retail chain Urban Outfitters began selling a board game based on a Hasbro classic, called Ghettopoly. The box cover, made to look like a hoodlum had graffiti-painted its title across an alley wall, also featured a black “gangsta” holding a bottle of ‘shine in one paw and a gun loaded with an extra magazine (more…)
Pierre-Jean Boquet, The Burning of Cap Français, 1791.
7,803 words
The monumental significance of the fall of Saint-Domingue, the crown jewel of the French colonial empire, and its ensuant descent into the African savagery of Haiti cannot be overstated. The terrible birth of Haiti as a mangled, stillborn phoenix from a river of white blood (more…)
5,462 words
“Socialism” is intrinsic to the “Right.” When journalists and academics refer in one breath to “liberalism, neoliberalism, and the Right-wing,” that attests to their ignorance, not to the accuracy of any such bastardization. Even at its most basic level of understanding, it seems to have been forgotten that in Britain there were Tories and Whigs in opposition. Now, Toryism has become so detached from its origins (more…)
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This week Greg Johnson talks to video blogger Endeavour on topics ranging from Thomas Hobbes to Steven Pinker to Pixar movies, answers questions from our Entropy donors, (more…)