April 2026 – Page 2 – Maverick Philosopher

The Passing Scene: Notes Political and Martial

If our geo-political adversaries were isolationist, we could be too. But they are not. Ergo, etc. Or is this the fallacy of Denying the Antecedent?

You may seek to withdraw from politics, but it won’t return the favor. So a certain measured engagement is unavoidable out of self-interest if for no other reason. Retreat routes include suicide, burying oneself in a monastery, and losing oneself in the private life of bourgeois self-indulgence. None of them can be recommended without reservation, but of the three the monastic route is the best. There are of course other ways of avoiding the political.

It is reasonable to hold that the power stations and other infrastructure of a rogue state that exports terror and credibly threatens to nuke the USA and Israel are legitimate military targets, despite their civilian use. But then the same goes for oil refineries, sewage disposal plants, reservoirs and water delivery systems, roads, and so on. All of these elements of infrastructure are necessary for the health and safety of the civilian population many of whom oppose the rogue regime and play no role at all in supplying them with materiel. This fact puts serious pressure on the distinction between combatants and noncombatants, and the related judgment that it is immoral always and everywhere to target noncombatants, a judgment one would surely like to uphold.

Of course, noncombatants are humans whereas the elements of infrastructure are not. But destroy enough of that infrastructure and you seriously harm and eventually bring about the death of the majority of noncombatants. And that amounts, albeit indirectly, to a targeting of noncombatants. The attackers know, after all, what the likely consequences of their actions will be.

But if we re-think the natural but facile combatant-noncombatant distinction along the foregoing lines, where will that lead us? Not to a total collapse of the distinction, but to its blurring, a blurring so messy as to make impossible any assured judgments in these matters.

One thing is clear. The current pope, Leo the XIVth, is a simple-minded fellow as he demonstrates here.

Communism and Islamism have in common their expansionism and totalitarianism. They are as little content to stay within their geographical boundaries as they are to allow a private life for those under their control. A sane political ideology stands for the rights of segregation and self-determination.

Another thing these disastrous ideologies share is contempt for truth.

Trump versus Prevost: Crudity versus Blather

Donald J. Trump issued a disgusting tweet on Easter Sunday morning. I commented on it in Political Polarization in the Age of Trump. But I fail to see the value of Pope Leo’s pious performative Easter Sunday response.

The pope continued with words directed at the current conflict in the Middle East: “The peace that Jesus gives us is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us!… Let those who have weapons lay them down!

If you threw down your weapons before Hitler, he would not be moved to do likewise, but kill you on the spot on the ground that you had thereby demonstrated your physiological decadence and unfitness for life in the only world there is. Something very similar holds for the Muslim thugs of Iran. It is utter folly to project into others one’s own values and attitudes, as if we are all the same ‘deep down’ or all ‘really want the same things.’ Bellicosity is hard-wired into some. Thugs, whether born that way or socialized into it, have no regard for your tender-hearted love of humanity.

The Islamo-theocrats have vowed to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization, and have proven their intent through countless horrific acts over many years. They cannot be reached by Prevostian pieties. And there is no small hypocrisy in Leo’s decidedly unleonine mouthings. Would he not call upon the armed might of the Italian state to crush any jihadis who descended on Vatican City to destroy its people and its treasures? Would he allow their slaughter and its destruction?

I discuss the problem in detail in Morality Private and Public. The essay concludes with some penetrating observations of Hannah Arendt from “Truth and Politics” in Between Past and Future, Penguin 1968, p. 245:

The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the wicked “to do as much evil as they please”), Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with “what is good for themselves” cannot very well be trusted with what is good for others, and least of all with the “common good,” the down-to-earth interests of the community.) [Arendt cites Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension between man qua philosopher or Christian and man qua citizen. As a philosopher and a Christian, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic “Better to suffer wrong than to do it” and the Christian “Resist not the evildoer.” But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare. This is true a fortiori of public officials and people in a position to influence public opinion. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his perishable body, is not applicable to me as a citizen. As a citizen, I cannot unrestrictedly “welcome the stranger” as the New Testament enjoins, the stranger who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug smuggler or a human trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I must not aid and abet his law-breaking. I must be concerned with public order and the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger’s lawbreaking, I would not be “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops and others who seek to inject a particular personal morality into the public sphere.

Are We at Maximal Polarization yet?

The Democrats refuse to credit Trump for anything he does. But there is something similar on the Right, though not as extreme. Sean Hannity last night on his show found the following Trump tweet funny, and found nothing in it to criticize:

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.

Now if you are morally sane you will grant there is no moral equivalence between the USA and any Islamo-theocratic terror state. No such state should be tolerated. What’s more, the civilized world must not tolerate any state, Islamist or not, that sponsors terrorism. The current Iranian regime not only sponsors world-wide terrorism through its proxies, but also is (or was) well on the way to the possession of nuclear warheads and the means to delivery them intercontinentally. It ought to be perfectly evident that “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” are not slogans but policies, and that the threat to implement them has been proven credible by Iranian actions since 1979.

The current regime in Iran must therefore be forced to acquiesce in Trump’s demands, including the surrendering of all uranium enriched to the point where it could be used in ‘suitcase’ dirty bombs. But why can’t the president just say this in a ‘presidential’ way, the say I have just said it? The whole world knows that he is a man who will act on his word. They know he is not a merely performative professional politician like Biden and the rest of the effete and epicene Democrats who put their private interests above the public good.

Why the unnecessary crudity, and more importantly, why the mockery of all Muslims in the final sentence? And why can’t Hannity, a reasonable fellow, bring himself to say something like what I just wrote?

What we have here, friends, is political polarization in excelsis.

Things are made worse by the “God on our side” mentality of some on the Right. Edward Feser’s take on this matter needs to be carefully thought through.

Theme music: With God on Our Side

Crossposted at Substack in a slightly improved version.

“Familiarity breeds contempt”

‘Familiarity’ is from the Latin familia, family. The pith of the well-known saying is purchased in the coin of exaggeration, since familiarity needn’t breed contempt; the exaggeration does however rightly point to the ambiguity of human relations.

Although family ties hold one in bonds of love, it is a holding which is too often a holding in contempt, whether mild, moderate, or murderous. We know our family members too well to respect them easily, though we ought to.

To maintain respect where there is no fear is a moral challenge. When love is present, it is easy. But true love is rare. In most situations, however, fear suffices. So that you not violate me, it suffices that you fear what I will do to you if you do violate me; whether you respect me is moot. Hence the logic of deterrence. “An armed society is a polite society.” “Peace through strength.” Si vis pacem, para bellum. (“If you want peace, prepare for war.”)

Since respect is often fear in disguise, it is often an open question how much the respect one is being shown is really fear.

Respect requires distance. So in every relation with anyone, inside or outside of the family circle, one ought to maintain a certain amount of distance. How much depends on the circumstances and whether one possesses good judgment (phronesis).

There is social distance and physical distance. Social distance is maintained by the observance of conventional forms of polite behavior both verbal and non-verbal. “Excuse me, sir” is an example of the former; knocking before entering, an example of the latter.

‘Family’ narrowly defined implies consanguinity. Consanguinity, however, is no guarantee of spiritual affinity. Sad, but true. On the other hand, there is no comity without commonality. One form of commonality is consanguinity. Although consanguinity contributes to commonality, I am spiritually affine with none of the people to whom I am blood-related. That is my experience; perhaps it is also yours. And yet it is said with some truth that “blood is thicker than water” a saying that points to our dismal rootage in the animal and the tribal.

This is why it is folly to regard the human race as one big happy family. It is not even potentially so. Social harmony is possible only among those who, at a minimum, share a common language and a common culture. Wide-open immigration is therefore a recipe for disaster. A flourishing multi-racial society may be possible; a flourishing multi-cultural society is certainly not. If most of our time is spent tearing each other apart, little time will be left over for ‘flourishing.’ A house divided against itself cannot stand.

The political consequences of the above are obvious.

Familiarity is a species of propinquity (social proximity) but not all propinquity is familiarity. Spiritual affinity requires neither consanguinity nor propinquity. There is spiritual affinity. This is a fact that, to my mind, points to our higher spiritual nature.

We humans are a hybrid ‘species’ drawn upward toward the aethereal but held fast by blood and soil, the tribal and the animalic. Or is that too Platonic a way of putting it?

Is the World Inconceivable Apart from Consciousness? (Version 2.0)

That depends. It depends on what ‘world’ means.

Steven Nemes quotes Dermot Moran on the former’s Facebook page:

[1] In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. [2] Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. [3] For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. [4] The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. [5] Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. (Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, p. 144.)

This strikes me as confused. I will go through it line by line. I have added numbers in brackets for ease of reference.

Ad [1]. I basically agree. But while conscious acts cannot be properly understood from within die natürliche Einstellung, it doesn’t follow that they cannot be understood “at all” from within the natural attitude or what Moran is calling the natural outlook. So I would strike the “at all.” I will return to this issue at the end.

Ad [2]. Here the trouble begins. I grant that conscious acts cannot be properly understood in wholly materialistic or naturalistic terms. They cannot be understood merely as events in the natural world. For example, my thinking about Boston cannot be reduced to anything going in my brain or body when I am thinking about Boston. Conscious acts are object-directed. They have the property philosophers call ‘intentionality.’ Intentionality resists naturalistic reduction.

And I grant that there is a sense in which there would not be a world for us in the first place if there were no consciousness. A world for us is a world that appears to us as conscious beings.

But note the equivocation on ‘world.’ It is first used to refer to nature itself, and then used to refer to the openness or apparentness of nature, nature as it appears to us and has meaning for us. Obviously, without consciousness, nature would not appear, but this is not to say that consciousness is the reason why there is a natural world in the first place. To say that would be to embrace a form of idealism.

Ad [3] We are now told that this is not “a subjective idealism.” I agree. But note that the world that is disclosed and made meaningful is not the world that is inconceivable without consciousness. The equivocation on ‘world’ persists. There is world in the transcendental-phenomenological sense as the ‘space’ within which things are disclosed and become manifest, and there is world as the things disclosed. These are plainly different even if there is no epistemic access to the latter except via the former.

Ad [4] Therefore, to be precise, we should say that the world as the ‘space of disclosure’ is inconceivable without consciousness. But this ‘space of disclosure’ is not the same as the natural world, which is not inconceivable without consciousness. If you say that it is, then you are adopting a form of metaphysical idealism, which is what Husserl in the end does.

In the end, he reduces Being to Meaning (Sein to Seinsinn) or Being (Sein) to ontic validity (Seinsgeltung). Accordingly, beings in the world are constituted (a piece of Husserlian jargon) as beings by transcendental consciousness. This is the upshot of the transcendental-phenomenological reduction. What we naively take in the natural attitude to exist in themselves, on their ontological own, so to speak, things like rocks and planets and galaxies, are in truth intentional objectivities constituted in transcendental consciousness.

Ad [5] In the final sentence, ‘world’ clearly refers to the physical realm, nature. I agree that it would be a mistake to reify consciousness, to identify it with any physical thing or process. Consciousness plays a disclosive role. It is pre-mundane, transcendental. As OF the world — genitivus objectivus — consciousness is not IN the world. But the world in this sense, the world that consciousness is not IN, is conceivable apart from consciousness. If it were not, then Roman Ingarden’s realism and Thomist realism, and other types, would not be conceivable, which they plainly are.

And so the confusion remains. The world in the specifically phenomenological sense, the world as the ‘space’ within which things are disclosed — compare Heidegger’s Lichtung or clearing — is inconceivable without consciousness. But the world as that which is disclosed, opened up, gelichtet, made manifest and meaningful, is NOT inconceivable apart from consciousness. If you maintain otherwise, then you are embracing a form of metaphysical idealism.

So I’d say that Moran and plenty of others are doing the ‘Continental Shuffle’ as I call it: they are sliding back and forth between two senses of ‘world.’ Equivalently, they are conflating the ontic and the broadly epistemic. I appreciate their brave attempt at undercutting the subject-object dichotomy and the idealism-realism problematic. But the brave attempt does not succeed. A mental act of outer perception, say, is intrinsically intentional or object-directed: by its very sense it purports to be of or about something that exists apart from any and all mental acts to which it appears. To speak like a Continental, the purport is ‘inscribed in the very essence of the act.’ But there remains the question whether the intentional object really does exist independently of the act. There remains the question whether the intentional object really exists or is merely intentional. Does it enjoy esse reale, or only esse intentionale?

I recommend to my friend Nemes that he read Roman Ingarden’s critique of Husserl’s idealism. I also recommend that he read Husserl himself (in German if possible) rather than the secondary sources he has been citing, sources some of which are not only secondary, but second-rate.

To return to what I said at the outset: Conscious acts cannot be properly understood naturalistically. But surely a full understanding of them must explain how they relate to the goings-on in the physical organisms in nature that support them. A satisfactory philosophy cannot ignore this. And so, to end on an autobiographical note, this was one of the motives that lead me beyond phenomenology.

Holy Saturday Night at the Oldies

First off, six definitive de-couplings of rock and roll from sex and drugs.

Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky

Johnny Cash, Personal Jesus. This is one powerful song.

Clapton and Winwood, Presence of the Lord.

Billy Preston, My Sweet Lord

George Harrison, Hear Me Lord

George Harrison, All Things Must Pass. Harrison was the Beatle with depth. Lennon the radical, McCartney the romantic, Starr the regular guy.

Bonus cuts

Stanley Bros., Rank Strangers

Bob Dylan, Gospel Plow

Bob Dylan, See that My Grave is Kept Clean

Bob Dylan, Father of Night

Andrea Bocelli and Alison Krauss, Amazing Grace

Bob Dylan, Not Dark Yet

Bro Joe sends us to Will You Remember Me? by the Pine Box Boys. The dessicated soul of the secularist is incapable of understanding religion. He thinks he will eradicate it. But religion, like philosophy, always buries its undertakers.

And Malcolm points out that I forgot Bob Dylan, You Gotta Serve Somebody.

Paul Evdokimov on the Monastic and Marital States

A Substack piece wherein I talk about sex and orgasm. Excerpt:

The final sentence of the quotation expresses a profound thought, which I take to be that the renunciation in both the monastic and the marital state can, and ought to be, equal. But how could that be? The monk and the nun eschew all sexual relations. The married person does not: such persons limit themselves to relations with their spouses. They do not renounce all sexual relations. True. But there is supposed to be chastity in marriage, and therefore chastity in sexual intercourse. Taken in its most austere sense, a sense that neither I nor any of you have ever practiced — I’ll bet — that austere chastity forbids all sexual contact between man and woman except that which can lead to procreation.

But not only that. It also demands that at the apex of orgasm, one not fully lose oneself in its pleasure, but that even at that peak of immersion in sensuality, one retain the remembrance and love of God, in line with the first of the Great Commandments: “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37–38) And that implies: all the time, even at the moment of orgasm.

Trump, Hormuz, and the End of the Free Ride: ‘Hegelian’ Geo-Pol Analysis

The following short piece by James E. Thorne will interest my geo-political commenters, Soriano and Caiati. HT: Anthony Flood.

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Trump, Hormuz and the End of the Free Ride For half a century, Western strategists have known that the Strait of Hormuz is the acute point where energy, sea power and political will intersect. That knowledge is not in dispute. What is new in this war with Iran is that the United States, under Donald Trump, has chosen not to rush to “solve” the problem. In Hegelian terms, he is refusing an easy synthesis in order to force the underlying contradiction to the surface. The old thesis was simple: the US guarantees open sea lanes in the Gulf, and everyone else structures their economies and politics around that free insurance. Europe and the UK embraced ambitious green policies, ran down hard‑power capabilities and lectured Washington on multilateral virtue, secure in the assumption that American carriers would always appear off Hormuz. The political class behaved as if the American security guarantee were a law of nature, not a contingent choice. Their conduct today is closer to Chamberlain than Churchill: temporising, issuing statements, hoping the storm will pass without a fundamental reordering of their responsibilities. Trump’s antithesis is to withhold the automatic guarantee at the moment of maximum stress. Militarily, the US can break Iran’s residual ability to contest the Strait; that is not the binding constraint. The point is to delay that act. By allowing a closure or semi‑closure to bite, Trump ensures that the immediate pain is concentrated in exactly the jurisdictions that have most conspicuously free‑ridden on US power: the EU and the UK. Their industries, consumers and energy‑transition assumptions are exposed.

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