It would be desirable to be able to survey one's faults and limitations with an equanimity that does not give way to acceptance, but combines with both a gentle resolve to work at self-improvement, and a detachment from the outcome of such work.
Month: November 2017
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some ‘Night’ Songs
Them, Here Comes the Night. Still gives me shivers up and down the spine as it did in '65. A blend of the Dionysian and the tender. A similar blend in Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman.
Bob Dylan, "Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you are trying to be so quiet?" Visions of Johanna, live from '66. Marianne Faithfull does a good job with it.
Beatles, The Night Before
Don McLean, Starry, Starry Night
Sam Cooke, Another Saturday Night
The Band, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Tom Waits, The Heart of Saturday Night
A Little Road Trip . . .
. . . to Sedona, Arizona and back. Left early Friday, back at noon on Saturday. 338 miles round-trip from my place in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains by the leisurely and scenic route via Payson which avoids Phoenix and most of Interstate 17. Wifey read a paper, so we had posh digs at the Bell Rock Hilton at conference rates.
I've lived in Hawaii, Santa Barbara, Boston, and the Midwest, not to mention other places in the USA and abroad. No place beats Arizona, all things considered. That is a mighty subjective judgment, to be sure, but if a blogger cannot vent his subjectivity, who can?
For one thing, Arizona is in the West and we all know the West is the best, far, far away from the effete and epicene East, lousy with liberals, and the high taxes they love; but not so far West as to be on the Left Coast where there was once and is no more a great and golden state, California. Geographical chauvinism aside, there is beauty everywhere, even in California, when you abstract from the political and economic and social malaise wrought by destructive leftists, the majestic Sierra Nevada, for example, the Range of Light (John Muir). Herewith, an amateur shot of the the Sedona red rock country:
A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment
David Bentley Hart reviews Edward Feser and Joseph M. Bessette, By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment, Ignatius Press, $24.95, 424 pp. (HT: Karl White)
I will add my two cents later if time permits.
Meanwhile, if you care to know where I am 'coming from,' feel free to poke around in my Crime and Punishment category. Trigger Warning: not for liberals!
Anecdote. I once asked Dale Tuggy how Ed Feser, a friend of both of us, does it. How does he sire a house full of kids, teach a heavy community college load, read papers all over, maintain an excellent, content-rich blog, and write so many books (see second article below)?
Dale, who has written on mysterianism in connection with the Trinity, replied, "It's a mystery."
Mayor of Albany Lies on Tucker Carlson Show
Kathy Sheehan, mayor of Albany, New York, while defending sanctuary cities, told an egregious lie on Tucker Carlson's show tonight (11/16) when she said that 'undocumented' (her word) workers were not in the U. S. illegally. Although Carlson eventually called her on it, he failed to clarify the distinction that Sheehan was mendaciously and confusedly exploiting.
Is Illegal Immigration a Crime?
It is. Illegal immigrants are subject to criminal penalties. While improper entry is a crime, unlawful presence is not a crime. One can be unlawfully present in the U. S. without having entered improperly, and thus without having committed a crime.
If a foreign national enters the country on a valid travel or work visa, but overstays his visa, failing to exit before the expiration date, then he is in violation of federal immigration law. But this comes under the civil code, not the criminal code. Such a person is subject to civil penalties such as deportation.
So there are two main ways for an alien to be illegal. He can be illegal in virtue of violating the criminal code or illegal in virtue of violating the civil code.
Those who oppose strict enforcement of national borders show their contempt for the rule of law and their willingness to tolerate criminal behavior, not just illegal behavior.
This is very serious business especially when the criminally illegal aliens are also criminal in the manner of MS-13 gang members.
Sheehan may well have her heart in the right place as so many benighted liberals do. She came across to me as a nice Irish Catholic girl out to make the world a better place. Being of the female persuasion, she probably thinks of government maternally. If so, this tendency might help explain why she has trouble with such simple distinctions as the one I drew above.
Getting Stoned
It means one thing in the decadent West, quite another in the fanatical Middle East.
The more we become 'stoners,' the more readily do we become objects of 'stonings.'
Clinton Redux
Here:
In the past few days a number of notable liberals have decided to take allegations of sexual assault against former president Bill Clinton seriously. Let’s just say that discarding the Clintons when they’re no longer politically useful to retroactively grab the higher moral ground isn’t exactly an act of heroism. But if we’re going to re-litigate history, let’s get it right.
I May Have To Eat My Words
A repost from 5 November 2016, just three days before the historic Trump victory that still has lefties fuming and flailing. And I did have to eat my words. We sane conservatives who voted for Trump have been vindicated in spades and the quisling, never-trumping, pseudo-cons are sliding deeper into irrelevance with every passing day, bow ties and all.
……………………
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.
…………………………..
In hindsight, I was wrong to hope that Trump not get the nomination. For now I see that none of the others could have beaten Hillary. Surely the pathetic Jeb! Bush could not have.
Memo to self: should you really be using 'surely' in affirmation of a counterfactual conditional?
The Consolations of Philosophy for the Middle-Aged
The Economist reviews Kieran Setiya, Mid-Life: A Philosophical Guide.
Related: A Philosopher on the Midlife Crisis
What is Ed’s Puzzle?
This just in from London:
A man called ‘Socrates’ is running and Socrates is debating.
Clearly if anyone verifies ‘a man called ‘Socrates’, and if ‘a man who is debating’ verifies that same person, then the conjunction appears to be true. And any number of men can be called ‘Socrates’, and be running and debating. But there’s the puzzle. The sense, the meaning, the semantics of ‘Socrates’ seems simply to ensure sameness of reference, or rather sameness of predication. ‘Is running’ and ‘is debating’ must be true of the same individual. But then the sense of the name is the same, whoever the sentences are verified of. Which paradoxically contradicts the classical theory of proper names, namely that a proper name cannot apply to different individuals in the same sense. Mill, A System of Logic:
Thus man is capable of being truly affirmed of John, George, Mary, and other persons without assignable limit; and it is affirmed of all of them in the same sense; for the word man expresses certain qualities, and when we predicate it of those persons, we assert that they all possess those qualities. But John is only capable of being truly affirmed of one single person, at least in the same sense. For, though there are many persons who bear that name, it is not conferred upon them to indicate any qualities, or any thing which belongs to them in common; and can not be said to be affirmed of them in any sense at all, consequently not in the same sense.
BV: More puzzling than Ed's puzzle is the puzzle of what Ed's puzzle is supposed to be. Call the latter 'the meta-puzzle.' I will try to solve it.
It is a datum that there are many men and animals who rejoice under the name 'Socrates.' When we philosophers invoke the name in philosophical contexts, we refer to the famous teacher of Plato. But there is also Socrates Jones, the rather less distinguished fellow who failed to get tenure at Whatsamatta U. There is also Socrates of Scranton, the resident bullshitter at the famous coffee house Insufficient Grounds. And so on.
In short, there are many men who bear the name 'Socrates.' Consider any one of them. Any one of them could verify (make true) the conjunctive proposition:
A man called ‘Socrates’ is running and Socrates is debating.
But then 'Socrates' in the second conjunct of the conjunctive proposition would appear not to refer to a particular person such as Socrates Jones in contradistinction from Socrates of Scranton, Socrates the teacher of Plato, etc. The name refers to any one person who verifies or make true both halves of the conjunction. This suggests to Ed, assuming I understand him, that the semantic function of 'Socrates' in the second conjunct is exhausted by its anaphoric or back-referential function. If so, the semantic function of 'Socrates' is wholly intralinguistic.
But let's not worry now about Ed's positive theory. Let's just ruminate over the puzzle he takes as (part of the) motivation for his positive theory. We can set it forth as an aporetic dyad:
A. A proper name cannot apply to different individuals in the same sense. (J. S. Mill)
B. A proper name can apply to different individuals in the same sense.
The limbs of the dyad are logical contradictories. And yet both limbs are very plausible.
Mill's point is that once we fix on a uniform usage of 'Socrates' to refer to one single thing such as the famous Greek philosopher who taught Plato, then that name in that sense cannot be used to refer to anything else. Pretty obvious, eh? Otherwise there would be no proper names. What makes a proper name proper is precisely that it cannot have more than one bearer.
Ed's point is that a proper name can apply to different individuals in the very same sense in that the 'Socrates' used in the second conjunct has the very same sense as the 'Socrates' mentioned in the first conjunct.
At this point Ed must tell me whether I have finally grasped his puzzle and thereby solved the meta-puzzle as to what his puzzle is.
If he returns an affirmative answer to this question, then we can proceed. If and only if.
Concupiscence
If we were just animals, no problem. If we were pure spirits, no problem. Concupiscence is a problem because we are spiritual animals. Neither angels nor beasts, we 'enjoy' dual residency in opposing spheres. The problem is not that the flesh is weak while the spirit is willing. The problem is that the spirit is fallen and wills the wrong thing: inordinate sensuous pleasure for its own sake.
The animal in us plays along supplying the playground for the spirit's perversity. The sins of the flesh do not originate there, but in the spirit. The flesh is merely the matter in which they are realized.
Or perhaps what I've just written, which is pretty standard MavPhil 'boilerplate,' is nonsense.
Maybe it is like this. Whatever 'spirituality' there is in us is merely a sickness that impedes our vitality and conjures up the ghosts of sin and guilt and free will and moral scrupulosity and talk of concupiscence. I never did get around to reading Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele, though I can guess at his dark vision.
The powerful take what they want. The weak, who want what the powerful want but are too impotent to acquire it, invent morality.
As I said, a dark vision. And one to be found in the identity-political of the present day, both on the Right and on the Left.
You understand that I am not endorsing the dark vision.
Ray Monk on Frege
The single thing I can imagine Russell finding most shocking would be Frege’s endorsement of patriotism as an unreasoning prejudice. The absence of political insight characteristic of his times, Frege says, is due to “a complete lack of patriotism.” He acknowledges that patriotism involves prejudice rather than impartial thought, but he thinks that is a good thing: “Only Feeling participates, not Reason, and it speaks freely, without having spoken to Reason beforehand for counsel. And yet, at times, it appears that such a participation of Feeling is needed to be able to make sound, rational judgments in political matters.” These are surely surprising views for “an absolutely rational man” to express. The man who wanted to set mathematics on surer logical foundations, was content for politics to be based on emotional spasms.
Related: For Veteran's Day, 2015: Patriotism versus Jingoism
Race Matters: Tucker Carlson Versus Ekow Yankah
Here are a couple of quick observations on last night's debate.
1) Carlson is a liberal about race. Dennis Prager provides a good explanation of the difference between being a liberal and being a leftist about race:
Race: This is perhaps the most obvious of the many moral differences between liberalism and leftism. The essence of the liberal position on race was that the color of one’s skin is insignificant. To liberals of a generation ago, only racists believed that race is intrinsically significant. However, to the left, the notion that race is insignificant is itself racist. Thus, the University of California officially regards the statement “There is only one race, the human race” as racist. For that reason, liberals were passionately committed to racial integration. Liberals should be sickened by the existence of black dormitories and separate black graduations on university campuses.
Carlson on his show regularly speaks of race in terms of skin color as Prager does above. Now if race is skin color, then race is reasonably regarded as insignificant given that one's color is a relatively superficial feature of a person. It would then be 'racist' in some pejorative sense of this term to judge people negatively on the the basis of their race, i.e., skin color. If you hate me just because of my skin color, what kind of miserable bigot are you?
That, in a nutshell, is the old liberal position on race. It is one shared by many present-day conservatives, many of whom invoke Martin Luther King, Jr.'s admonition that people should be judged "not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." That famous admonition, as stirring as it is, clearly conflates race with skin color and is therefore superficial, literally.
Interestingly, its superficiality has been recognized on both the Right and the Left. While color of skin is a phenotypical manifestation of race, race is not the same as skin color. One proof of this is that a person can change his skin color but no person can change his racial ancestry. If you were born of two black parents, then you are black, and nothing you now do or have done to your body can change that fact. Not even Michael Jackson, "the one-man melting pot" as a certain talk jock called him, could pull it off. Jackson, you will recall, took steps to lighten his skin.
It is also clear that attitudes towards blacks are based on their behavior not their color. Most white liberals would not think of buying a house in a predominantly black area. Is that because of skin color or typical behavior patterns? The question answers itself.
It cuts the other way as well. Why do many blacks hate whites? Because they are white or light in color? No, because they 'act white.' It's about behavior not skin color.
Note that while it would be irrational to avoid a person or group of persons because of his or their color, it would not be irrational to avoid a person or group of persons because of his or their behavior.
In sum, to speak of race in terms of something as superficial as skin color is to assume that race is of no significance. But this is a question that ought not be begged.
Why do leftists hold that it is 'racist' to think that race is insignificant or to hold that there is only one race, the human race? This is a very interesting question. Let's leave it for later.
2) Holding as he does that race is a superficial matter of skin color allows Carlson to conclude that we are all the same deep down and that the "definition of 'racism'" is to think that one can infer something about a person's motives solely on the basis of their race/skin color. And so Tucker goes on to accuse Yankow of being a racist. (2:55)
The underlying difference which neither of the discussants manage to bring into the open is that Tucker is a liberal who thinks that race is superficial and insignificant whereas Yankow appears to be a left-wing race realist.
A Blogger’s Lament
This from a fellow blogger:
My output is down lately. I'm finding it harder not to just look away from it all. There are good books to read, history to study, music and chess to play, hikes to take, questions to ponder, family to love, drinks to drink and food to eat, and so much more. Watching my nation and civilization rot and fester just isn't so much fun anymore.
That said, it's also hard not to be terribly angry about it all, and of course I do have things to say about it. So this is probably just a weary spell that will pass.
What times we live in!
Why follow the disturbing events of the day, thereby jeopardizing one's peace of mind, when one can do little about them? Tranquillity of mind and the news don't go well together. Withdrawal and retreat remain options to consider. But on the other side of the question:
The temptation to retreat into one's private life is very strong. But if you give in and let the Left have free rein you may wake up one day with no private life left. Not that 'news fasts' from time to time are not a good idea. We should all consume less media dreck. But there is no final retreat from totalitarians. They won't allow it. At some point one has to stand and fight in defense, not only of the individual and the family, but also of the mediating structures of civil society, that precious buffer zone between the individual and familial and Leviathan.
In the Cave
Troppe cose non sono chiare.
Too many things are not clear.
But all is not dark. So perhaps we can say:
La grotta è chiaroscuro.
The cave is clear-dark.
E noi siamo abitanti delle grotte.
And we are cave dwellers.
E così siamo chiaroscuro.
And so we are clear-dark.
Questa è la situazione umana.
This is the human predicament.