Blogging – Page 5 – Maverick Philosopher

Why No Posts Yesterday?

Because of a Typepad outage. Not my fault! Typepad, though, has served me well over the years. I have been with them since Halloween, 2008. Been blogging, though, since 2004. Total Typepad pageviews are now over four million. I thank you for your patronage. I'll write all the same, readers or no. I'm a natural-born scribbler. But it is nice to be read and receive fan mail. I'm only human.

If you are a person of good will, I wish you the best for the New Year. If you are not, I wish you a belated bag of Christmas coal.

This is a good time to repeat MY PLEDGE:

You will never see advertising on this site. You will never see anything that jumps around in your visual field. You will not be assaulted by unwanted sounds. You will never have to read anything against a black background. I will not beg for money with a 'tip jar.' This is a labor of love and I prize my independence.

I also pledge to continue the fight, day by day, month by month, year by year, against the hate-America, race-baiting, religion-bashing, liberty-destroying, gun-grabbing, university-trashing, truth-intolerant, terror-appeasing fascists of the Left. As long as health and eyesight hold out.

I will not pander to anyone, least of all the politically correct.

And I won't back down. Are you with me?

Afraid to show some civil courage? Buy guns and learn how to use them. That should enhance your self-confidence.

Some Notable 2016 Maverick Philosopher Entries

The View from Mount Zappfe: The Absurdity of Life and Intellectual Honesty. On one day alone, it drove traffic to 10,695 page views.

Is Moral Relativism Dying?

Propinquity and Social Distance

Is it Rational to be Politically Ignorant?

Making America Mexico Again

On the Status of Thomistic Common Natures

Christopher Hitchens, Religion, and Cognitive Dissonance

The Problem of Dirty Hands

Could a Jew Pray the Our Father?

A Red-Diaper Baby I Once Knew: Anecdotes Illustrating Leftist Illusions

The Parable of the Lion and the Turtle

The Differences Between Me and You

A Mistaken Definition of 'Political Correctness' and a 'Correct' Definition

Profiling, Prejudice, and Discrimination

The Incompatibility of Islam and the West

Monasticism and the Monks of Mount Athos

Does Reality Have a Sentence-Like Structure?

Questions About Meditation

American Fascism?

The IQ Taboo and the Truth-Intolerant Left

'Homegrown Terrorist'

Can Kant Refer to God?

Can an Atheist be Moral?

Immigration, Nationalism, and Xenopobia

Why Keep a Journal?

The Horror of Death and its Cure

College-Educated or College-Indoctrinated?

Is Beef Food?

Generic Statements

Is the Modal Ontological Argument Compelling?

Intimations of Elsewhere Dismissed

Edith Stein on Cognitio Fidei: Is Faith a Kind of Knowledge?

The MavPhil Make-Up Principle

Any day on which blogging is 'light' or nonexistent must be followed by a day on which blogging is 'heavy.'

The only exceptions are those times of Extended Unplug when the sane blogger retreats within the Inner Citadel for rest and recuperation.

3,290 Page Views Yesterday

Why the surge? I have no idea despite scrutiny of my referral list. I have been averaging 1600-1800 page views per day. But yesterday's spike was nothing like the one this site received in late February of this year: 10,695. I figure that that was due to my post about the Norwegian anti-natalist, Peter Wessel Zappfe.

Perhaps we philosophers need to pay more attention to anti-natalism as a cultural phenomenon and as a component in der Untergang des Abendlandes.

We are losing the will to perpetuate our civilization and its values. Christians in the Middle East are being slaughtered and their churches pulverized by Muslim savages. So what did Pope Francis say in response to Donald Trump's call for a wall along the southern U.S. border? We don't need to build walls, but bridges. Francis the fool is one dope of a pope.

Evangelical Protestants understand this, though they are too polite and politic to put it the way I just did. This is why, mirabile dictu, so many of them support Trump, the nasty sybarite of Gotham who builds casinos to the greater glory of Lust, Greed, Gluttony, and Lady Luck.

They understand that his character flaws are no worse than Hillary's and that ideas and policies trump persons and their peccadilloes. His are mainly sound; hers are all of them destructive.

(I used 'peccadillo' above because I am overly fond of alliteration; but it is not quite the right word, referring as it does to little sins. The sins and crimes of Hillary are by no means little. She belongs in jail.)

I Used to be a Human Being

Andrew Sullivan recounts the perils of life in the information superhighway's fast lane.

But our man certainly is verbose. One would have thought that all that smartphone use and all that manic tweeting and updating would have induced a bit of pithiness into his writing.

I love the Internet and use it everyday except when I'm on retreat. But I have never sent a text message in my life; I do not have a Twitter account; my Facebook page languishes; I do not own a smartphone; my TracPhone account costs me a paltry $99 per year and I have thousands of unused minutes; I have a laptop and an ipad for backup but rarely use them; in the wild I use map and compass, never having bothered to buy a GPS device; I am never out and about with something stuck into my ear.

I know people who begin their day by checking text messages. You do what you want, but I say that's no way to live.

More Sage Advice in How Not to Begin the Day.

The 2016 Summer Retreat Starts Today

When this crazy world is too much with us, we can and should retreat to the inner citadel.

Starting now, I will unplug from this hyperkinetic modern world for a period of a month or longer. How long remains to be seen. I will devote myself to such spiritual exercises as prayer, meditation, spiritual reading, hard-core philosophy and theology pursued for truth as opposed to professional gain, and the exploration of nature.

I will not be checking my e-mail except once a week. The plan is for ordinary operations to resume sometime in August.

I will avoid unnecessary conversations and their near occasion, socializing, newspapers, telephony, radio, television, blogging, facebooking, tweeting, and all non-essential Internet-related activities. In a word: all of the ephemera that most people now take to be the ne plus ultra of reality and importance. (As for Twitter, I am and hope to remain a virgin: I have never had truck with this weapon of mass distraction.)

Why? Some reasons in Mass Media and Spiritual Deterioration.

I ask my valued correspondents to refrain from sending me any links to events of the day or commentary thereon. I am going on a 'news fast' which is even more salutary for the soul than a food fast is for the body.

From time to time we should devote time to be still and listen beyond the human horizon. Modern man, crazed little hustler and self-absorbed chatterbox that he is, needs to enter his depths and listen.

"Be still, and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10)

Not Blog-Worthy

A good blogger exercises restraint as to what he posts. Too much of the merely personal makes for a boring blog. Facebook is the place for narcissism. But a blog bare of all traces of the personal is not a blog either, by my definition, one with which you are free to disagree. Here is an entry from my written journal which illustrates what needn't be published to the four corners of the earth:

The old push broom has been retired from service, 30 years worth, it may well be. The handle had become unrepairably unattached to the brush. I believe I bought the old broom when we purchased our first house 30 years ago in '86. I bought a new 'industrial' broom on Saturday, long-handled and serious, at the Crismon Road Home Despot Depot. I can't wait to try it out.

Neue Besen kehren gut!

Fear not, I shall not report on the state of my bowels, which is excellent, nor pull a Trump and crow about the efficacy of my schlong.

Zapffe Must be Popular!

This weblog averages about 1,350 page views per day. But yesterday it snagged 10,695 views, and now at 6:20 AM local time it has already racked up 3,200 or so. What explains this? Reddit got hold of my Zappfe post, scroll down a bit, and that must be driving the surge.

Perhaps we philosophers need to pay more attention to anti-natalism as a cultural phenomenon and as a component in der Untergang des Abendlandes.

Evangelicals understand this, though they are too polite and politic to put it the way I just did. This is why, mirabile dictu, so many of them support Trump, the nasty sybarite of Gotham who builds casinos to the greater glory of Lust, Greed, Gluttony, and Lady Luck.

Point of logic: 'Muslim savages' does not imply that all Muslims are savages. Or do you think that 'deciduous trees' implies that all trees are deciduous?

UPDATE 2/27: Traffic settled down a bit yesterday with a mere 4,509 page views. It should get back to normal over the next few days. As every conservative appreciates, the 'regard' of fellow mortals is a decidedly mixed blessing. I am quite happy to bump along at 1, 500 page views per day. Obscurity is bliss and he who craves fame is a fool. Fame is conferred by others and the quality of these others is a good measure of the value of fame.

Maverick Philosopher III Passes 3.5 Million Mark

This, the third main incarnation of MavPhil, commenced operations on Halloween, 2008. Since then it has racked up 3,501,215 page views. Daily average: 1,321.21. Total posts: 6,357. Total comments: 8,775.

Here are the entries for 31 October 2008.

Will I ever hang up the keyboard? I've been at this, almost daily, since May of 2004.

I can't see myself quitting as long as health and eyesight hold out. Blogging is just too deeply satisfying.

For one thing it satisfies the need to teach of someone who hated most classroom teaching. Philosophy is a magnificent, beautiful, and noble thing, but it is wasted on the typical undergraduate. In a class of 35, five might be worth teaching. And I taught at good schools. That is one of the reasons I resigned a tenured position at the age of 41. If you are reading this, you want to be here, and I'm glad to have you.

Second, blogging attracts the like-minded. Isolation is relieved and friendships are made, the genuine friendships of spiritual affinity as opposed to the superficial ones of mere propinquity. Ralph Waldo Emerson would have been a blogger for sure. "The good of publishing one's thoughts is that of hooking you to like-minded men, and of giving to men whom you value . . . one hour of stimulated thought." (Bliss Perry, The Heart of Emerson's Journals, p. 94.)

Third, blogging is superior to private journal writing because the publicity of it forces one to develop one's ideas more carefully and more thoroughly.

Fourth, the blogger has a reach that far exceeds that of the person who publishes in conventional ways.

More Reasons to Blog

A Note on Civil Courage

Responding to a commenter who states that one exposes oneself to tremendous risk by speaking out against leftist insanity, Malcolm Pollack writes:

Most bloggers who write from a contrarian position about these things seem to use noms de plume. In fact, I do have another blog I’ve set up for this purpose, but I almost never post anything to it. I prefer to speak under my own name — not because I’m trying to be “brave”, which this really isn’t at all, but just because it feels more honest, and because I have a right to, and because I’m ornery. (Running into that theater in Paris to try to save the people inside, knowing you are overwhelmingly likely to be killed: that’s brave. Writing grumpy blog-posts from the comfort and safety of my home is not.)

I would underscore the First Amendment right to free speech under one's own name without fear of government reprisal. Use it or lose it. (Unfortunately, the disjunction is inclusive: you may use it and still lose it.) But use it responsibly, as Pollack does. The right to express an opinion does not absolve one of the obligation to do one's level best to form correct opinions. Note however that your legal (and moral) right to free speech remains even if you shirk your moral (but not legal) obligation to do your best to form correct opinions.

I would add to Pollack's reasons for writing under his own name the credibility it gives him. You lose credibility when you hide behind a pseudonym. And when you take cover behind 'anonymous,' your credibility takes a further southward plunge, and shows a lack of imagination to boot.

Pollack is right: it doesn't take much civil courage to do what he and I do. I've made mine, and he is on the cusp of making his, if he hasn't already. (You could say we are 'made men.') We don't need jobs and we have no need to curry favor. And our obscurity provides some cover. Obscurity has its advantages, and fame is surely overrated. (Ask John Lennon.)

This is why I do not criticize the young and not-yet-established conservatives who employ pseudonyms. Given the ugly climate wrought by the fascists of the Left it would be highly imprudent to come forth as a conservative if you are seeking employment in academe, but not just there.

What is civil courage? The phrase translates the German Zivilcourage, a word first used by Otto von Bismarck in 1864 to refer to the courage displayed in civilian life as opposed to the military valor displayed on the battlefield. According to Bismarck, there is more of the latter than of the former, an observation that holds true today. (One example: there is no coward like a university administrator, as recent events at the university of Missouri and at Yale once again bear out.) Civil courage itself no doubt antedates by centuries the phrase.

Seventh Typepad Anniversary

This Halloween marks the seventh anniversary of MavPhil's transition to Typepad in 2008. It has proven to be a good service with an extremely reliable server. Current stats:

3, 346, 643 Lifetime Pageviews

1, 309.33 Pageviews/Day

6, 163 Total Posts

8, 036 Total Comments

I thank you for your 'patronage.' And remember: triple your money back if not completely satisfied.

Any complaints? Fill out the form below:

Why Write?

Why Do I Write?

I write to know my own mind, to actualize my own mind, and to attract a few like-minded and contrary-minded people. The like-minded lend support, and the contrary-minded – assuming that their criticisms are rationally based – allow me to test my ideas. Dialectic is to the philosopher what experiment is to the scientist.

Why Do I Blog?

If you are going to write at all, why not publish? Why hide your light under a bushel? To publish is to make public, and the beauty of blogging is that no editor stands between the blogger and his audience.

Writing and Self-Expression

Good writing is not any sort of petty self-expression, but an expression of the engagement of mind with world whereby the little logos of the individual seeks to adjust itself to the world-Logos.

The Big Unplug Starts Today

Starting now, I will unplug from this hyperkinetic modern world for a period of days or weeks. How long remains to be seen. I will devote myself to such spiritual exercises as prayer, meditation, spiritual reading, hard-core philosophy and theology pursued for truth as opposed to professional gain, and the exploration of nature.

I will avoid unnecessary conversations and their near occasion, socializing, newspapers, telephony, radio, television, blogging, facebooking, tweeting, and all non-essential Internet-related activities. In a word: all of the ephemera that most people take to be the ne plus ultra of reality and importance. (As for Twitter, I am and hope to remain a virgin: I have never had truck with this weapon of mass distraction.)

Why? Some reasons in Mass Media and Spiritual Deterioration.

But I am no benighted neo-Luddite. The air conditioning will stay on in my abode in the shadows of the Superstitions.

"Be still, and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10)

Why Write?

A reader sends me the following quotation from a Richard Mitchell:

I have never yet written anything, long or short, that did not surprise me. That is, for me at least, the greatest worth of writing, which is only incidentally a way of telling others what you think. Its first use is for the making of what you think, for the discovery of understanding, an act that happens only in language.

I surmise that the Richard Mitchell in question is The Underground Grammarian.

I agree with Mitchell's thought subject to a minor qualification. The achievement of understanding is not possible without language, but it does not, in every instance, require writing, or even speech. Nevertheless, the perfection of (discursive) understanding is possible only by writing.

Second to the careful articulation of one's thought in written language comes that rare event called 'dialogue,' in which two sympathetic minds use each other to arrive at a truth that transcends both.

Quirky Spam Filter Warning

A commenter asked me to check if a comment of his had been sent to the spam corral there to languish in cyber-obscurity for all eternity or until the demise of this site, whichever comes first. Sure enough, there it was cheek-by-jowl with other good comments some of them from commenters whose other comments got through. So I sent them to their rightful places.

I'll have to check the spam file more often. I apologize for not doing so. If you submit a good comment and it doesn't appear, you can always shoot me an e-mail about it.