Month: June 2023

The Beauty of the Solitary Life

Thomas Merton, The Journals, vol. 6, 24 June 1966, p. 344: "The beauty of the solitary life . . . is that you can throw away all the masks and forget them until you return among people."

For, as one of my aphorisms has it, "The step into the social is by dissimulation."

Before I quit my cell, I put on my face, don my mask, go gray, and try not to appear too intense.

Of Fox and Fellatio: A Fox News First?

This is the first time I have heard fellatio referred to on a major TV network. The sweet and wholesome Kayleigh McEnany reports. The fellatio reference is around 2:34.  Joey B, "devout Catholic" in journo lingo, stars as Porn Enforcer and takes a brave stand against book burning.

UPDATE (6/23)

Do you remember when our illustrious prez hung out with rapper Cardi B?  Click here to revisit the high-level discourse that flowed between these two cultural 'icons.' Birds of a feather . . . . Speaking of which, wouldn't John Fetterman, feeble and fettered in body and mind, make a good running mate for Uncle Joe in 2024? Our kakistocracy would be well-served by the dynamic Dementocratic duo. As for those of you who voted for Joe knowing all that you did or should have known, I am in too good a mood at the moment to tell you what I really think of you.

Biden-Fetterman 24

Referring to Two Things

Ed writes,

Does ‘these two things’ refer to two things, or not? (Suppose the things are shoes.)

Perhaps not. For there are the two things, but also the plurality of them. The plurality is one thing, identical with neither the first thing, nor the second.

So the phrase ‘these two things’ actually refers to three things? Makes no sense to me.

BV:  Perhaps it makes no sense to you because  you think that 'thing' can only mean 'material thing.'  We agree that 'these two shoes' refers to exactly two shoes, each of which is a material thing, and that there is no third material thing of which they are members.  So if that is what our nominalist means when he denies that the two shoes form a plurality, then we agree.

Here is a slightly more complicated example. You have a bolt B and a nut N that fits the bolt, i.e., N can be screwed onto B.  Now there is clearly a difference between B, N unconnected and B, N connected. But even here I will grant that there is no third material thing wholly distinct from B and wholly distinct from N when B, N are connected.  There is no third material thing 'over and above' the connected bolt and nut.  Here is exactly what you have and no material third thing in addition:

Nut on bolt

Disagreement may begin to set in when I point out that the weight of the object depicted above is strictly greater that the weights of the bolt and the nut taken separately.  The total weight is additive such that if the nut weighs 2 ounces and the bolt 16 ounces, then the weight of the object depicted is equal to 2 + 16 = 18 ounces. The predicate '___weighs 18 ounces' is not true of the nut, and it is not true of the bolt, and it is not true of any material third thing 'over and above' the object depicted, and this  for the simple reason that there is no such third material thing.

So what is the predicate '___ weighs 18 ounces' true of?  I say that it is true of the plurality the sole members of which are N and B.  I am not further specifying the nature of this plurality. Thus I am not saying that it is a mathematical set, nor am I saying that it is a mereological sum.  I am saying that there is a distinction to be made between a plurality of items and the items.

Note that if our nominalist were to say that a plurality is exhausted by, or reduces to, its members, then will have given up the game by his use of 'its.'  So he has to somehow avoid that locution.

Our nominalist will grant that the predicate '___weighs 18 ounces' is not true of the nut, not true of the bolt, and not true of any third material thing  wholly distinct from the bolt and the nut.  But he might say that it is not true of anything. The predicate is flatus vocis, a mere word, phrase or sound to which nothing extramental and extralinguistic corresponds.  I reject this view. It implies that the nut threaded onto the bolt has in objective reality no weight that is the sum of the objective weights of the nut and bolt taken separately.

Our nominalist seems committed to an intolerable linguistic idealism. Suppose all language users were to cease to exist. It would remain that case that the weight of our nut-bolt combo would equal 18 ounces. It would remain the case that Earth is spheroid in shape and has exactly one natural satellite.

But why is he a nominalist in the first place? Is it because he thinks that only material particulars exist? If that is true then of course there cannot be a plurality of two material particulars.  Hilary Putnam: "Nominalists must at heart be materialists . . . otherwise their scruples are unintelligible." (Phil Papers, vol. I, 338)

Is he a nominalist because he is an empiricist who thinks that only sensible particulars exist?  I see the nut, I see the bolt, I see the nut threaded onto the bolt; but I don't see any plurality of material particulars. Is our man restricting what exists to that which is empirically detectable via our senses and their instrumental extensions (e.g., microscopes, telescopes, etc.)? 

Is he both a materialist and an empiricist? How do those two positions cohere?

‘Equity’ Can be Deadly

Words of 'woke' from Oceangate CEO. Surely qualifications and experience can't matter much.  Surely. Might there be some hubris in naming  a submersible Titan? 

I dilate further at Substack.

In other news, armed IRS agents seize gun purchase records from Montana gun shop. Some say we are now living in a police state. I recommend that you read Stephen P. Holbrook, Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and Other Enemies of the State.  Three brief reviews here.

My Pronouns?

Up yours!

The point, of course, is to not validate, by answering, the stupid question.

This can be done in more or less polite ways.

You might say, politely, "Your question rests on a presupposition that I reject, namely, that the DEI agenda is a good thing. Now move along and have a nice day."

Yesterday I received a solicitation for funds from an alma mater. I wrote back, "I am in a position to make a substantial contribution, and will do so, but only on condition that you publicly renounce the DEI agenda and return to the true purposes of the university." 

Why Shouldn’t the Vatican Go ‘Woke’?

The RCC is already a joke with a clown at its head; why then should it not go 'woke'?  It has needed defunding for a long time now. It is up to us to make it true that 'go woke, go broke.' Story here:

VATICAN CITY — An unprecedented global canvassing of Catholics has called for the church to take concrete steps to promote women to decision-making roles, for a "radical inclusion" of the LGBTQ+ community . . . .

The document also asked what concrete steps the church can take to better welcome LGBTQ+ people and others who have felt marginalized and unrecognized by the church so that they don't feel judged: the poor, migrants, the elderly and disabled, as well as those who by tribal or caste feel excluded.

Perhaps most significantly, the document used the terminology "LGBTQ+ persons" rather than the Vatican's traditional "persons with homosexual tendencies," suggesting a level of acceptance that Francis ushered in a decade ago with his famous "Who am I to judge" comment.

Satanists must feel terribly marginalized by the RCC even at this late date. They need to be recognized so that they don't feel judged.  'Catholic' means universal; so shouldn't everyone be included?  Diversity, equity, inclusion!  In fact, Satanists are more worthy of inclusion than New Atheists (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris, et al.) because the former, unlike the latter, believe in the super-natural, the meta-physical.  In any case, the New Atheism is so passé! Hell, nobody knows what it is is anymore. Satanism is the current thing and must be honored as such. Diversity demands the inclusion of Satanists! And (superlunary) equity, equality of soteriological outcome, for all, regardless of merit or demerit!

Moral judgment must be avoided at all costs since, as we all know now, there is no difference between making moral judgments and being judgmental, and no bien-pensant wokester wants to be perceived as judgmental.

"LGBTQ+ persons" absolutely must replace the Vatican's traditional "persons with homosexual tendencies," because of the latter's implied distinction of tendency/disposition and exercise.  It was traditionally held that there is no sin in having the innate homosexual tendency or disposition; the sin consists in exercising or acting upon it. But this distinction is quite obviously homophobic and hateful because it marginalizes those who act upon their inherent homosexual desires. Besides, it's a bogus distinction; it sounds like some dusty punctilio from some superannuated scholastic manual of the sort the beatific Bergoglio rightly excoriated.   Both disposition and exercise are to be, not tolerated, but celebrated.  By her own astute admission, Karine Jean-Pierre, as the first black, female, lesbian WH press secretary, is a historic figure.  No doubt about it, and qualifications for the job have nothing to do with it.

Pope Buffoon

See? I'm a clown! Who am I to judge?

What me worry

A Little Learning

by Alexander Pope

A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts ;
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise !
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky ;
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last ;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way ;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise !

Is Nothing Sacred?

The Los Angeles Dodgers, in 'go woke, go broke' mode, have foolishly breathed new life into the late Christopher Hitchens and the  blasphemy question.

Substack latest.  

But will the 'woke' go broke?  That depends on us.  

As our institutions continue to shove deviancy and degeneracy into our faces, the meaningful question is: Will the Right pledge to fundamentally transform the country? Unless a dramatic realignment takes place—unless Americans as a people reassert their sovereignty and discover the morality that must be present for republican government to have success—the sinews of civil society will snap.

Stunts like what the Dodgers pulled off (and Target tried to do) will continue save for the Right offering a long-term, systematic plan of resistance that changes the behavior of those sitting atop the state-corporatist power structures.

Why Do We Tolerate Crime?

WE don't tolerate it; our political enemies do.  Check this out. The miscreant is black, no? If yes, then he enjoys carte blanche to be just as baaad a badass dude as he wants to be. The incident also begs raises the secondary question: why are there so many Somalis in the Twin Cities? Might those girls have been safer in Somalia?

We are warned that the video is "disturbing." Really? Are you disturbed by it? It's par for the course! Are we not all by now inured to such 'disturbance'? Or are you a Rip van Winkle who just 'woke' up?

You want disturbance? That comes later.

Debate, Disagreement, and the Limits of Rational Discourse

I wrote a few months back,

. . . the wisest policy is not to debate leftists. Generally speaking and admitting exceptions, leftists need to be defeated, not debated. Debate is worthwhile only with open-minded truth seekers. Truth, however, is not a leftist value. At the apex of the leftist's value hierarchy stands POWER. That is not to say that a leftist will never speak the truth; he will sometimes, but only if it serves his agenda. 

Tony Flood replied that the above quotation reminded him "of [Eric] Voegelin's stance on this very issue, about which I blogged a few years ago."  In that post Tony reproduces the first paragraph of Voegelin's Debate and Existence as follows. [note to AGF: your hyperlink is busted: 404 error]  Tony breaks Voegelin's one paragraph into four.

 

Continue reading “Debate, Disagreement, and the Limits of Rational Discourse”