The game of life is 'sudden death' with the time control unknown.
Author: Bill Vallicella
Are You Hungry?
Don't let the thought of the pleasures of the table persuade you to eat if you are not hungry. Eat only at meal times, but never because it is meal time. An exception is breakfast for those quitting their domiciles for a sally-forth into a mean world. To leave your house without food in your gut is like driving into the desert without gas in your tank. You don't know what awaits you.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The last two horrible years make my annual Thanksgiving homily ring somewhat hollow, especially the penultimate line:
And don't forget the country that allows you to live your own kind of life in your own kind of way and say and write whatever you think in peace and safety.
Still and all, we have much to be grateful for. But we will have to redouble our efforts to preserve the objects of our gratitude, in particular, what remains of our liberty, and our "sweet land of liberty." Patriots are waking up to the depredations of 'Woke' and there is reason to be hopeful. So be of good cheer, do your bit, and long live the Republic!
The Trial of Kyle
The Rittenhouse trial was not about the 17-year-old primarily, but about one's right to defend oneself with lethal force against a lethal threat. Hence the great significance of this case. An absolutely crucial moral and legal principle is at stake. The righteous Right won this time, but the fact that the pernicious Left tried to railroad and destroy the intelligent, decent, and well-meaning kid shows that they will stop at nothing to destroy our Anglo-American system of justice, the best the world has yet to see. Leftists smeared him as a 'white supremacist' against all evidence, and against all sense: Kyle and his assailants are all white. The Democrat 'president' of the United States, Joseph Biden, joined in the smear. Rittenhouse's defensive actions, and the ensuing show trial, had nothing directly to do with race. And given all the clear video evidence, Rittenhouse should not have been criminally charged in the first place.
But again, it is not primarily about Rittenhouse. As bad as the Left's policy of personal destruction is, far worse is their policy of political destruction: the hard Left, which now controls the Democrat Party, aims to "fundamentally transform" (Obama), i.e., destroy, the American polity and system of government by, among many other things, opening the borders to any and all, eliding the distinction between citizen and non-citizen, giving the franchise to non-citizens, conspiring to give the vote to felons while still in prison, defunding the police, emptying the prisons, eliminating cash bail, transforming the public schools and the universities into culturally Marxist seminaries, erasing the historical record, putting up statues to criminals . . . .
The battle lines have never been clearer. Get ready.
The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is castThe slow one now will later be fastAs the present now will later be pastThe order is rapidly fadingAnd the first one now will later be lastFor the times, they are a-changin'.
The Biblical Dylan in prophetic mode. The civil rights battles of the '60s were fought and won. Now a different civil rights struggle is upon us, and Dylan's words again resonate and apply.
Related: Victor Davis Hanson, Can the FBI be Salvaged?
Do You Drive Your Car to Fill Your Tank?
No? Then why do you live to eat?
Death
Death is a journey to a destination the existence of which cannot be known prior to arrival.
Preparing to Die
Some want to die; some wait to die; some fear to die; some don't care whether they live or die. The philosopher prepares to die.
Why Women are ‘Over-Represented’ among Realtors
Have you ever wondered why women are 'over-represented' among realtors? It is because they excel men when it comes to conciliation and mediation. I don't mean this as a snarky put-down of the distaff contingent. I mean it as praise. And if females do not take it as praise, are they not assuming the superiority of male virtues?
It is a non sequitur to think that if the Xs are 'under-represented' among the Ys, then the Xs must have been the victims of some unjust discrimination. Men are 'under-represented' among massage therapists, but the explanation is obvious and harmless: men like to have their naked bodies rubbed by women in dark rooms, but women feel uncomfortable having their naked bodies rubbed by men in dark rooms. It is not as if there is some sort of sexism, 'institutional' or individual, that keeps men out of massage therapy. If you retort that some women do like massages from men not their intimates, then you don't understand generic statements.
Blacks are 'over-represented' in the NFL and the NBA. Is that because of some racism 'institutional' or individual, that keeps whitey out? Of course not. Blacks are better than whites at football and basketball. Jews are just terrible. Chess is their athletics. Jews dominate in the chess world. Is that because the goyim have been suppressed?
Does my talk of blacks and Jews make me a racist and an anti-Semite ? To a self-enstupidated leftist or 'progressive,' yes. For they are too often incapable, or have rendered themselves incapable, of distinguishing between a statement whose content is race and a racist statement. If you accuse me of retailing stereotypes, I will point out that some stereotypes have a basis in reality. Leftists tend to embrace negative and groundless stereotypes about stereotypes.
I am treading a via media between the excesses of the neo-reactionaries (NRs) and the even worse excesses of the leftists. My challenge to the NRs: How can you fail to see the importance of equal treatment of men and women? One NR of my acquaintance claimed that the notion of equality of opportunity is vacuous. Why? To require that applicants for a job not be discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, or creed, is not vacuous. It has a definite content. That it could use some spelling out is not to the point.
What I mean is this. Some creeds are such that people who hold them must be discriminated against. Suppose you are an orthodox Muslim: you subscribe to Islamic law (sharia) and hold that it takes precedence over the U. S. Constitution and Anglo-American law. You ought to be discriminated against. You ought not be allowed to immigrate into the USA. The U. S. Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Kitsch, Sentimentality, and Dylan
April Stevens' and Nino Tempo's version of Deep Purple became a number one hit in 1963. I liked it when it first came out, and I've enjoyed it ever since. A while back I happened to hear it via Sirius satellite radio and was drawn into it like never before. But its lyrics, penned by Mitchell Parish, are pure sweet kitsch:
When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls
And the stars begin to twinkle in the night
Through the mist of a memory you wander back to me
Breathing my name with a sigh.In the still of the night once again I hold you tight
Though you're gone, your love lives on when moonlight beams
And as long as my heart will beat, sweet lover we'll always meet
Here in my deep purple dreams.
Kitsch is bad art, but what is the essence of kitsch, and why is it bad? Presumably it is sentimentality that makes kitsch kitsch, and it is this sentimentality that makes kitsch aesthetically and perhaps even morally dubious. One self-indulgently 'wallows' in a song like this, giving into its 'cheap' emotions. The emotions are 'false' and 'faked.' The melody and lyrics are formulaic and predictable, 'catchy.' The listener allows himself to be manipulated by the songwriter who is out to 'push the listener's buttons.' The aesthetic experience is not authentic but vicarious. And so on. Theodor Adorno would not approve.
There is great art and there is kitsch. I partake of both, enjoy both, and know the difference. What is wrong with a little kitsch in moderation? No, I don't collect Hummel figurines and my stoa is not carpeted with astroturf. What is sentimentality and what is wrong with it? There is a literature on this, but I've read almost none of it. Who has time?
This brings me to Bob Dylan who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Now I've been a Dylan fan from the early '60s. In the '60s I was more than a fan; I was a fanatic who would brook no criticism of his hero. And I still maintain that in the annals of American popular music no one surpasses him as a songwriter.
But the Nobel Prize for Literature? That's a bit much, and an ominous foreshadowing of the death of the book and of quiet reading in this hyperkinetic age of tweets and sound bites. A large theme. Get to it conservative bloggers. Why do I have to do all the work?
Dylan's most sentimental song? I don't know, but Forever Young is in serious contention.
A long, long way from It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding and Visions of Johanna (Marianne Faithful) and Desolation Row. Here is the original of Visions of Johanna.
All’s Well that Ends Well
The hike was almost over. The light was failing as we gingerly negotiated the last steps of the treacherous downgrade of Heart Attack Hill on the Bluff Spring Trail in the Superstition Mountains. Suddenly my hiking partner let out a yell and jumped back at the unmistakable sound of a diamond back rattlesnake (crotalus atrox). It was a perfect hike: physically demanding in excellent company with a dash of danger at the end.
“You’ve Ruined my Life, Professor Craig!”
Here, with William Lane Craig's response.
The Tree and the House
A parable about envy.
Substack latest. Opening:
A man planted a tree to shade his house from the desert sun. The tree, a palo verde, grew like a weed and was soon taller than the house. The house became envious, feeling diminished by the tree’s stature. The house said to the tree: "How dare you outstrip me, you who were once so puny! I towered above you, but you have made me small."
Once More on Envy
His mother wanted him to amount to something. His father was afraid that he might — and make the father look small.
Envy Again
How little you must know about me to envy me!
Would you envy me had you trod my paths and had thereby come to appreciate the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (Hamlet, Act III, Scene I) that found in me their target?
Your envy, an ugly sin and deadly, is bred in ignorance which, if not a sin is nonetheless ugly — and deadly.
Envy
How little you must be to envy me!