Category: Pessimism and Optimism
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Pessimism and Anti-Natalism in True Detective
True Detective is a new HBO series getting rave reviews. This bit, I am told by Karl White from whom I first learned about the series, is from the first episode. It's good. I'll leave it to you to sort through the sophistry of Rust's spiel. Here is some TD dialog about religion. I'll say…
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Whither America?
The Case for Pessimism (Mark Steyn). The Case for Optimism (John Podhoretz).
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Silenian and Epicurean Sources of “Death is Not an Evil”
Clarity will be served if we distinguish the specifically Epicurean reason for thinking death not an evil from another reason which is actually anti-Epicurean. I'll start with the second reason. A. Death is not an evil because it removes us from a condition which on balance is not good, a condition which on balance is worse…
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Kerouac October Quotation #13: Buddhist Life Denial
From Some of the Dharma, Viking 1997, p. 175, emphasis added: No hangup on nature is going to solve anything — nature is bestial — desire for Eternal Life of the individual is bestial, is the final creature-longing — I say, Let us cease bestiality & go into the bright room of the mind realizing…