November 2016 – Page 5 – Maverick Philosopher

On the Abysmal Depth of Disagreement

Why do we disagree so fundamentally about so many things? And can anything be done about it? Jonathan Haidt offers a solution in terms of more proximity and interaction and less separation; if people in opposing camps just got to know each other they would find common ground. Really? Consider the following opposing views of Trump's election triumph. The first passage is the opening paragraph of An American Tragedy by David Remnick writing in The New Yorker:

The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.

Remnick continues in this vein, his stridency increasing as he proceeds, in a piece that is representative of the Left's reaction to Hillary's defeat. My second passage is from Goodnight, Mrs. Clinton (A Partial-Birth Campaign is Laid to Rest) by Michael Matt writing in The Remnant:

Had she been elected it would have said much more about us than about her. We would have shown ourselves a soulless and heartless people, beyond hope, beneath contempt.

There was so much at stake. Much of our work here at The Remnant, for example, would have been criminalized over the next four years. Our home schools would have become illegal enterprises in the village Mrs. Clinton had in mind. Even our ability to move about freely would have been exponentially undermined. (As the “leader of a hate group”, according to the infamous Southern Poverty Law Center, it isn’t difficult for this writer to imagine how enthusiastically President Hillary would have enforced hate crime legislation against Christian America.)

So, yes, like everyone else, we’re still trying to process the news of this truly awesome political and moral and even spiritual upset (if Trump repeals the Johnson Amendment, even the Catholic Church in this country might become relevant again). There’s much to learn from what we saw last night, not the least of which is that the mainstream media, far from omniscient, are in fact clueless ideologues never to be trusted again.

No matter what happens with a Trump presidency, we now know that a substantial percentage of the American people are not beyond hope—that they still have enough Christian sense to recognize and reject the demonic when they see it. And what’s the takeaway from that? Demons are not invincible. In fact, last night they had their tails handed to them by a “buffoon” they’d mercilessly mocked for 18 months, and who decided he’d be the first politician in decades to give God-fearing Americans a voice again—a comparative small concession that nevertheless silenced the left-half of this country for the first times in decades. Donald Trump let pro-life, pro-God, pro-family America loose from their shackles—and the demons scattered before them like roaches.

My thesis is that the differences exemplified above run so deep as to be irreconcilable. No amount of conversation, however well-intentioned and amicably conducted, could possibly lead to agreement on fundamentals.

What then is to be done?

I suggest that what we need to mitigate tribal hostility is not more proximity and interaction, pace Haidt, but less, fewer 'conversations' not more, a government restricted to essential functions, more toleration, voluntary segregation, a return to federalism, a total stoppage of illegal immigration, and a reform of current immigration law to favor people who share our values. (Sharia-supporting Muslims are an example of a group that does not share our values.)

Do you have a better idea?

Worldly Success: How Much is Enough?

You have enough worldly success if it enables you to advance the project of self-realization on the important fronts including the moral, the intellectual, and the spiritual. The vita contemplativa cannot be well lived by the grindingly poor, the sick, the politically and socially oppressed, the sorely afflicted and tormented. Boethius wrote his Consolations of Philosophy in prison, but you are not Boethius.

You have too much worldly success when it becomes a snare and a burden and a distraction.

We need some social acceptance and human contact, but fame is worse than obscurity. Reflect for a moment on the character of those who enjoy fame and the character of those whose fickle regard confers it.

We need a modicum of worldly wherewithal to live well, but more is not better. Only the terminally deluded could believe, as the saying goes, that "You can't be too thin or too rich." You could be anorexic or like unto the New Testament camel who couldn't pass through the eye of a needle.

We need health, but not hypertrophy.

We need power, but not the power over others that corrupts, but the power over oneself that does not.

Arizona Pot Prop 205 Defeated

I smoked my fair share of the stuff back in the day, and so I know whereof I speak: more potheads will only hasten the Decline of the West in its prime instance, the U. S. of A.

Libertarians often argue that drug legalization would not lead to increased drug use. I find that preposterous, and you should too. There are at least three groups of people who are dissuaded from drug use by its being illegal. See Libertarians and Drug Legalization.

I don't know how much dope Gary Johnson smokes but he seems to suffer from traces of amotivational syndrome as one might have gleaned from the collapse of his campaign. (The Aleppo business, the sticking-out-of-tongue incident, his general dopiness.) Even in dope-friendly Colorado, a good place to get Rocky Mountain high, he snagged only 4.9 % of the vote.

As for the AZ pot prop, 47.9% voted for legalization, and 52.1% against.

Cher to Jupiter

I hope Cher makes good on her 'threat' to bolt should Trump win. "If he were to be elected, I'm moving to Jupiter," she tweeted.

This gives new meaning to my claim that there is a planetary difference between Right and Left.

For more such celebrity nimrods see here. What will be become of the Republic without that twerking jillass, Miley Cyrus?

I Eat My Words!

With pleasure.

In January, in Trump's Traction and Conservative Inaction, I wrote:

. . . there is no way Trump can beat Hillary. He has alienated too many groups, women and Hispanics to name two. Add to that the fact that large numbers of conservatives will stay home, and Hillary is in like Flynn. Mark my words.

My prediction was not irrational; it was just WRONG. I underestimated the Jacksonian surge of support. It will be instructive to analyze how so many could have been so wrong.

In any case, Hillary the Corrupt is out like Stout, and thank God for that. What we have here is a stinging rebuke to the hate-America Left and their NeverTrump enablers.

I am already feeling Schadenfreude in anticipation of the howling of the likes of George Will and his band of bow-tied pussy-wussies.

This raises a very interesting question. Is there a righteous form of Schadenfreude or is it in every one of its forms as morally objectionable as I make it out to be here?

Brian Leiter, in despair at the election result, quotes Sartre, "We must live without hope." On the contrary. We now have real change and reason for hope. Maybe the Ladder Man — so-called because of his careerism and obsession with ratings and rankings — will leave the country. One can hope.

Change and hope.

UPDATE:

This just in from London Karl:

Am loving it, absolutely loving it. All those smug, arrogant, close-minded left/liberal patronising jerks getting it in the nuts.

Schadenfreude aplenty to be had here in this hysterical piece and the comments.

Catholics Must Support Trump

It is astonishing that there are Catholics who vote Democrat, when the Dems are the abortion party, and lately and increasingly a threat to religious liberty to boot. How then could any practicing Catholic vote for Hillary or support Hillary by voting for neither Hillary nor Trump?

So here's my final appeal on Election Day. It consists of a repost from August, substantially redacted, and an addendum in which I reproduce a recent bit of text from George Weigel.

………………….

Could a Catholic Support Trump?

Via Burgess-Jackson, I came to this piece by Robert P. George and George Weigel, An Appeal to Our Fellow Catholics (7 March 2016). Appended to it is a list of distinguished signatories. Excerpt:

Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to be president of the United States. His campaign has already driven our politics down to new levels of vulgarity. His appeals to racial and ethnic fears and prejudice are offensive to any genuinely Catholic sensibility. He promised to order U.S. military personnel to torture terrorist suspects and to kill terrorists’ families — actions condemned by the Church and policies that would bring shame upon our country. And there is nothing in his campaign or his previous record that gives us grounds for confidence that he genuinely shares our commitments to the right to life, to religious freedom and the rights of conscience, to rebuilding the marriage culture, or to subsidiarity and the principle of limited constitutional government.

I will respond to these points seriatim.

A. It is true that Trump is unfit to be president, but so is Hillary. But that is the choice we face now that Trump has secured the Republican nomination. In the politics of the real world, as opposed to the politics of utopia, it will be either Trump or Hillary: not both and not neither. Are they equally unfit for the presidency? Arguably yes at the level of character. But at the level of policy no clear-thinking conservative or Catholic could possibly do anything to aid Hillary, whether by voting for her or by not voting for Trump. Consider just abortion and religious liberty and ask yourself which candidate is more likely to forward an agenda favorable to Catholics.

B. Yes, Trump has taken vulgarity in politics to new depths. Unlike milquetoast conservatives, however, he knows how to fight back against political enemies. He doesn't apologize and he doesn't wilt in the face of leftist lies and abuse. He realizes that in post-consensus politics there is little or no place for civility. There is no advantage in being civil to the viciously uncivil. He realizes that the Alinskyite tactics the uncivil Left has been using for decades have to be turned against them. To paraphrase Barack Obama, he understands that one needs to bring a gun to a gun fight.

C. The third sentence above, the one about appeals to racial fears, is something one would expect from a race-baiting leftist, not from a conservative. Besides, it borders on slander, something I should think a Catholic would want to avoid.

You slander Trump and his supporters when you ignore his and their entirely legitimate concern for the rule of law and for national sovereignty and suggest that what motivates him and them is bigotry and fear. Trump and Trump alone among the candidates has had the courage to face the Islamist threat to our country and to call for the vetting of Muslim immigrants. That is just common sense. The milquetoast conservatives are so fearful of being branded xenophobes, 'Islamophobes,' and racists and so desirous of being liked and accepted in respectable Establishment circles, that they will not speak out against the threat.

If they had, and if they had been courageous conservatives on other issues, there would be no need for Trump, he would have gained no traction, and his manifest negatives would have sunk him. Trump's traction is a direct result of conservative inaction. The milquetoasts and bow-tie boys need to look in the mirror and own up to their complicity in having created Trump the politician. But of course they will not do that; they will waste their energy attacking Trump, the only hope we have, in violation of Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment. What a sorry bunch of self-serving pussy-wussies! They yap and scribble, but when it comes time to act and show civil courage, they wilt. They need to peer into a mirror; they will then know what a quisling looks like.

D. I concede that Trump's remarks about torture ought to worry a Catholic. But you should also realize that Trump's strategy is to shoot his mouth off like a rude, New York working stiff in order to energize his base, to intimidate his enemies, and to draw free media attention to himself. Then in prepared speeches he 'walks back' his unguarded comments and adds the necessary qualifications. It is a brilliant strategy, and it has worked.

Trump understands that politics is a practical struggle. It takes place in the street, in a broad sense of the term, not in the seminar room. We intellectuals cringe at Trump's absurd exaggerations, but Trump knows that Joe Sixpack and the blue-collared guys who do the real work of the world have contempt for 'pointy-headed intellekshuls' and he knows that the way to reach them is by speaking their language.

E. It is true that Trump's previous record supplies a reason to doubt whether Trump really shares Catholic commitments. But is it not possible that he has 'evolved'? You say the 'evolution' is merely opportunistic? That may well be. But how much does it matter what his motives are if he helps with the conservative agenda? It is obvious that his own ego and its enhancement is the cynosure of all his striving. He is out for himself, first, and a patriot, second. But Hillary is also out for herself, first, and she is manifestly not a patriot but a destructive hate-America leftist who will work to advance Obama's "fundamental transformation of America." (No one who loves his country seeks a fundamental transformation of it.)

We KNOW what Hillary and her ilk and entourage will do. We KNOW she will be inimical "to the right to life, to religious freedom and the rights of conscience, to rebuilding the marriage culture, or to subsidiarity and the principle of limited constitutional government." Now I grant you that Trump is unreliable, mercurial, flaky, and other bad things to boot. But it is a very good bet that some of what he and his entourage will do will advance the conservative agenda. Trump is espousing the Right ideas, and it is they that count. Can't stand him as a person? Vote for him as a vehicle of the Right ideas!

So I say: if you are a conservative or a Catholic and you do not vote for Trump, you are a damned fool! Look in the mirror and see the quisling who is worried about his status in 'respectable society.'

Companion post: Social Justice or Subsidiarity?

Here is what George Weigel has to say in NRO today:

The most obvious con is the Trumpian one. Over the past year, the Republican party was captured by a narcissistic buccaneer who repudiated most of what conservatism and the Republican party have stood for over the past half-century, cast venomous aspersions on Republican leaders and those manifestly more qualified than he is for president, insulted our fellow citizens, demeaned women and minorities, played footsy with the Russian dictator Putin, threw NATO under the bus, displayed a dismal ignorance of both the Constitution and the grave matters at stake in current public-policy debates — and in general behaved like a vulgar, sinister bore. In doing all this, Trump the con artist confirmed in the eyes of a partisan mainstream media every one of its false conceptions of what modern conservatism stands for and is prepared to do when entrusted with the tasks of governance.

This outburst does not merit reply beyond what I have said above and elsewhere; Weigel the man needs to seek help for a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

But one last shot: as for the Constitution, we KNOW that Hillary will shred it; Trump, however, has promised to appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court, and he has provided a list. How can anyone's head be so far up his nether hole as not to understand this?

The nation is at a tipping point. Do your bit to save it.

You Know Free Speech is on the Wane . . .

. . . when YouTube restricts access to the wholesome and avuncular and innocuous Dennis Prager. Well, maybe he is not so harmless in the eyes of a leftist: he defends traditional American values.

If Hillary wins, free speech will come under increasingly vicious attack. Don't forget: the Left thinks it owns dissent. Conservative dissent, to them, is 'hate speech.' The leftist thinks, "Free speech for me, but not for thee."

Companion post: The Left's Hatred of Conservative Talk Radio

Leviticus 19:15: The Lord versus Hillary

Trump's Comments: The Latest Left-Wing Hysteria

The Left's Biggest Lie?

Civil Courage

Why Are So Many on the Left Moral Scum?

From One #NeverTrump to Another

Socratic Reflections on Election Day

Excellent

On Transcending Tribalism

Jonathan Haidt:

Humans are tribal, but tribalism can be transcended. It exists in tension with our extraordinary ability to develop bonds with other human beings. Romeo and Juliet fell in love. French, British and German soldiers came out of their trenches in World War I to exchange food, cigarettes and Christmas greetings.

The key, as Cicero observed, is proximity, and a great deal of modern research backs him up. Students are more likely to become friends with the student whose dorm room is one door away than with the student whose room is four doors away. People who have at least one friend from the other political party are less likely to hate the supporters of that party.

But tragically, Americans are losing their proximity to those on the other side and are spending more time in politically purified settings. [. . .]

Haidt is right that tribalism can be transcended, at least to some extent, and that proximity and interaction can facilitate the transcending. But he is far more optimistic that I am.

What Haidt ignores is that there is no comity without commonality, as I like to put it. You and I can live and work together in harmony only within a common space of shared values and assumptions and recognized facts. But that common space is shrinking.

Take any 'hot button' issue, Second Amendment rights, for example. What do I have in common with the anti-gunner who favors confiscation of all civilian firearms, or only slightly less radically, wants to ban all handguns? To me it is evident that my right to life grounds a right to self-defense, and with it a right to acquire the appropriate means of self-defense. If you deny this, then we have no common ground, at least not on this topic. On this topic, we would then be at loggerheads. If you then work politically or extra-politically to violate what here in the States are called Second Amendment rights, then you become my enemy. And the consequences of enmity can become unpleasant in the extreme.

In a situation like this, proximity and interaction only exacerbate the problem. Even the calm interaction of scholarly argument and counter-argument does no good. No matter how carefully and rigorously I argue my position, I will not succeed in convincing the opponent. This is a fact of experience over a wide range of controversial topics, and not just in politics. The only good thing that comes of the dialectical interaction is a clarification and deeper understanding of one's position and what it entails. If you think, say, that semi-automatic weapons ought to be banned for civilian use, then you and I will never find common ground. But I will perfect my understanding of my position and its presuppositions and better understand what I reject in yours.

After we have clarified, but not resolved, our differences, anger at the intransigence of the other is the likely upshot if we continue to interact in close proximity whether in the same academic department, the same church, the same club, the same neighborhood, the same family . . . . This is why there are schisms and splits and factions and wars and all manner of contention.

Anger at intransigence can then lead on to the thought that there must be something morally defective, and perhaps also intellectually defective, about the opponent if he holds, say, that a pre-natal human is just a clump of cells. One advances — if that is the word — to the view that the opponent is morally censurable for holding the position he holds, that he is being willfully morally obtuse and deserves moral condemnation. And then the word 'evil may slip in: "The bastard is not just wrong; he is an evil son-of-a-bitch for promoting the lie that an unborn child is just a clump of cells, or a disposable part of woman's body like a wart." The arguably false statements of the other get treated as lies and therefore as statements at the back of which in an intent to deceive. And from there it ramps up to 'Hillary is Satan' and 'Trump is Hitler.'

The cure for this unproductive warfare is mutual, voluntary, segregation. A return to federalism. I develop the thought in A Case for Voluntary Segregation.

So while Haidt is right that proximity and interaction can promote mutual understanding and mitigate hostility, that is true only up to a point and works only within a common space of shared assumptions, values, and recognized facts. Absent the common space, the opposite is true: proximity and interaction are precisely what must be avoided to preserve peace.

The Problem and Three Main Solutions

The problem is how to transcend tribalism. I count three main solutions, the Liberal, the Alt Right, and the Sane (which is of course my view!)

There is what I take to be Haidt's rather silly liberal solution, namely, that what will bring us together is proximity and interaction. He assumes that if we all come together and get to know each other we will overcome tribalism. This borders on utopian nonsense. It is precisely because of proximity and interaction that many decide to self-segregate. The more I know about certain individuals and groups the less I want to have to do with them. The thugs of Black Lives Matter, for example. By the way, 'thug' is not code for 'nigger.' 'Thug' means thug. Look it up.

At the other extreme we find the 'alties' and neo-reactionaries. They have a sound insight, namely, that there are unassimillable elements and that they must be kept out. For example, Sharia-supporting Muslim are unassimillable into the U. S. because their values are antithetical to ours, perhaps not all of their values, but enough to make for huge problems.

The success of e pluribus unum depends on the nature of the pluribus. A One cannot be made out of just any Many. (Cute formulation, eh?) The members of the manifold must be unifiable under some umbrella of common values, assumptions, and recognized facts. One nation cannot be made out of many tribes of immigrants unless the many tribes of immigrants accept OUR values, American values. The tribalism is overcome or at least mitigated by acceptance of a unifying set of Ametrican values and ideas.

The alt-rightists, however, do not really offer a solution to the problem of transcending tribalism since their 'solution' is to embrace an opposing tribalism. They are right about the reality of race, as against the foolish notion that race is a social construct, but they push this realism in an ugly and extreme direction when they construe American identity as white identity, where this excludes Jews. American identity is rooted in a set of ideas and values. It must be granted, however, that not all racial and ethnic groups are equally able to assimilate and implement these ideas and values. Immigration policy must favor those that are.

The sane way is the middle way. To liberals we ought to concede that diversity is a value, but at the same time insist that it is a value that has to be kept in check by the opposing value of unity. Muslims who refuse to accept our values must not be allowed to immigrate. They have no right to immigrate, but we have every right to select those who will beneft us. That is just common sense. The good sort of diversity is not enhanced by the presence of terror-prone fanatics.

What we need, then, to mitigate tribal hostility is not more proximity and interaction, but less, fewer 'conversations' not more, less government, more toleration, voluntary segregation, a return to federalism, a total stoppage of illegal immigration, and a reform of current immigration law.

Will any of this happen under Hillary? No. So you know what you have to do tomorrow.

Would You Have Nothing to Do with Politics?

Having nothing to do with politics would make sense only if you could reasonably expect that politics would reciprocate and have nothing to do with you.

Muslim and Marxist

Muslim: There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.

Marxist: There is no God, and Marx is his prophet.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: ‘Hard’ Songs

Woody Guthrie, Hard Travelin'

Johnny Winter, Hard Way. Fine blues guitar.

Joan Baez, A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall. I've been listening to this version of the Dylan classic for 50 years and I still love it. Brings tears to my eyes every time.

Chicago, Hard Habit to Break

Elvis Presley, Hard Headed Woman

The Seeds, Pushin' Too Hard. A cheesy tune by a '60s garage band. Video intro by the late Casey Kasem. His reference to the Southland is to the So. Cal. area.

Johnny Winter, Life is Hard. "Life is hard, and then you die." "The devil wears a blue dress and she is bound to get you in the end."

Billy Joel, A Hard Day's Night, live, Frankfurt, 1994.

Three Dog Night, Easy to be Hard

Reason and Rationalization

Reason is weak in discernment but strong in rationalization.

I May Have to Eat My Words

In January, in Trump's Traction and Conservative Inaction, I wrote:

. . . there is no way Trump can beat Hillary. He has alienated too many groups, women and Hispanics to name two. Add to that the fact that large numbers of conservatives will stay home, and Hillary is in like Flynn. Mark my words.

A bold asseveration somewhat justified by what had transpired up to that point. Things look differently now. I may have to eat my words. And I hope I do. I also wrote:

Let's hope that Trump does not get the Republican nomination. But if he gets it, you must vote for him. For the alternative is far worse. Politics is a practical business. It is not about maintaining your ideological purity, but about getting something accomplished in murky and complex circumstances. It is always about the lesser or least of evils. Trump would be bad, but Hillary worse.

That's right except that I no longer use the misleading phrase 'lesser of evils.' It seduces people into asking, 'Why vote for either if both are evil?' when in the vast majority of political contests like these none of the contenders is evil in a way that would justify voting for neither.

Not 'lesser of evils' but 'better and worse.' Trump is better than Hillary policy-wise even if not much better character-wise.

The state is not about to wither away. She shall abide, to oppress, but also to guide and provide. It obviously matters who has his hands on the levers of power. It matters who sets the tone and influences the culture in Washington and beyond.

Some are tempted to withdraw and have nothing to do with politics. That would make sense if one could expect politics to reciprocate by having nothing to do with one. A highly unreasonable expectation, especially when the Dems are in power. Never forget that the Left is totalitarian to the core and will lie brazenly to achieve its ends. A good example is the pack of brazen lies put forth by Obama and Co. to ram through ObamaCare, the unaffordable Affordable Care Act.

Hillary too lies brazenly as should be evident to all by now when it is helpful unto her personal ambition and the leftist agenda (in that order).

You know what you have to do come Tuesday.

A Philosopher on the Midlife Crisis

Kieran Setiya, The Midlife Crisis. An outstanding essay. What exactly is a midlife crisis?

In the form that will concern us, then, the midlife crisis is an apparent absence of meaning or significance in life that allows for the continued presence of reasons to act. Although it is often inspired by the acknowledgement of mortality, the crisis can occur in other ways. It may be enough to prompt the midlife crisis that you see in your future, at best, only more of the achievements and projects that make up your past. Your life will differ only in quantity from the life you have already lived, a mere accumulation of deeds.

A weblog as I envisage it is a form of writing that is midway between the unpublished privacy of the personal journal and the publicity of an article published in a professional journal. The blogs that interest me the most are thus those that include some of the self-reference of a Facebook page absent the full-bore, and boring, narcissism that characterizes most of them while retaining, in the main, an objective trans-personal focus. This by way of justifying some talk of myself.

Setiya's characterization of the midlife crisis fits my case almost exactly. My crisis lasted a long four years, starting at age 41. In the fifth year, a year's worth of travel and teaching and study in Turkey pulled me out of it. Three years later, at age 49, I embarked upon the happiest period of my entire life, a period which continues into the present. And the decline of physical powers consequent upon aging does not prevail against my sense of well-being. Looking back on the difficult crisis years, I ask myself: What was that all about?

"It may be enough to prompt the midlife crisis that you see in your future, at best, only more of the achievements and projects that make up your past." Exactly. That was the trigger for me, that and the action I took at 41.

Hired right out of graduate school at 28, I was awarded tenure at 34. Until tenure, life for an academic can be an emotional roller-coaster. It's up and down with the prospect of up or out, and if out, then most likely out for the count. Tenure brings a measure of peace. I settled in and enjoyed the job security. But then the worm began to gnaw. What now? More of the same? Will I spend the rest of my life in this boring midwest venue among these limited colleagues, decent people most of them, but academic functionaries more than real philosophers? Teaching intro and logic, logic and intro to the bored and boring? What starts out an exciting challenge can turn into a living death. It is truly awful to have to teach philosophy to a class of 35 only five of whom have a clue as to the purposes of a university and a scintilla of intellectual eros. It is like trying to feed the unhungry. (Cf. John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea of a University, a book overpaid administrators ought to be hit upside the head with and then forced to memorize.)

And then there was the rising tide of political correctness that in those days was only about half as bad as it has become. Why anyone with a conservative bent and a real love of the life of the mind would embark upon the quixotic quest for an academic post in the humanities in the current culturally Marxist climate is beyond me. You might get really lucky, find a job, and get tenure. But to what avail? You wanted to live the life of the mind in a university, not have to keep your mouth shut and your head down in a leftist seminary. No free man wants to spend his life in dissimulation.

Philosophy is different things to different people. For me it is a spiritual quest. Try to explain that to the average hyperprofessionalized and overspecialized academic hustler. The quest demands isolation from academic careerists and busybodies. It demands time for spiritual practices such as meditation. And so at age 41, having spent two years in a visiting associate professorship at a better school, I abandoned the tenured position at my home institution to live the life of the independent philosopher.

It was a bold move, foolish in the eyes of the world. "What about your career?" I was asked. The bold move triggered my midlife crisis and led me into the desert for a good long period of purgation. I have emerged from it a better man.

So if any of you are in the midst of a midlife crisis, view it as a sort of purgatory on earth. Perhaps you need to be purged of vain ambitions and unrealistic expectations. Make the most of it and you may emerge from it better than when you went in. Don't try to escape it by doing something rash like running off to Las Vegas with a floozie. Endure it and profit from it. If you must buy a motorcycle, do as a colleague of mine did: he rode it through his midlife crisis and then had the good sense to sell it.

Related: The Real Roots of Midlife Crisis. A good Atlantic article on happiness and the U-curve.