Category: Sex, Love, Lust
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Why Did Trump Get the Religious Vote?
After all, no one would confuse Trump with a religious man. Robert Tracinski's explanation strikes me as correct: The strength of the religious vote for Trump initially mystified me, until I remembered the ferocity of the Left’s assault on religious believers in the past few years—the way they were hounded and vilified for continuing to…
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The Role of Concupiscence in the Politics of the Day
We are concupiscent from the ground up, and matters are only made worse by our living in sex-saturated societies. As a result our erotic 'ears' are continually being pricked up by salacious tales and rumors. These distractions are exploited by the Clinton machine which knows that digging up ancient dirt on the opponent will…
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Richard Swinburne’s Paper Now Online
Here is the paper by the distinguished philosopher of religion that was found 'hurtful' by the culturally Marxist crybullies at the recent Midwest meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers. ……………… UPDATE (10/4): The hyperlink to the Swinburne paper, embedded within the First Things entry, is not now working but it was yesterday. For compensation,…
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The Custody of the Heart
If you practice the custody of the heart, it may save you from unnecessary folly — as delightful as romantic follies can be. Do you feel yourself falling in love with your neighbor's wife? Don't tell yourself you can't help it. Don't hijack Pascal's "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing." Get…
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Unsuccessful in Love
The Collected Poems and Epigrams of J. V. Cunningham, Chicago, The Swallow Press, 1971. Epigram 57 Here lies my wife. Eternal peaceBe to us both with her decease. Epigram 59 I married in my youth a wife.She was my own, my very first.She gave the best years of her life.I hope nobody gets the worst.…
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Callicles as Precursor of De Sade
At Gorgias 492, tr. Helmbold, the divine Plato puts the following words into the mouth of Callicles: A man who is going to live a full life must allow his desires to become as mighty as may be and never repress them. When his passions have come to full maturity, he must be able to…
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Prostitution
A great evil well-exposed by Rachel Moran, a former prostitute, in Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution (W. W. Norton, first American edition 2015).
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While on Ego Surfari . . .
. . . I turned up this delightful tidbit in Gilleland the Erudite's archive of arcana from 2006: Bill Vallicella (aka Maverick Philosopher) quotes the Latin phrase "Post coitum omne animal triste est," translates it as "After sexual intercourse every animal is sad," and remarks "The universal quantifier causes me some trouble." A variant of…
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Can Love be Commanded?
And one of them, a doctor of the Law, putting him to the test, asked him, "Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?" Jesus said to him, "'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.' This is the greatest and…
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St. Valentine’s Eve at the Oldies: Love and Murder
We'll start with murder. David Dalton (Who Is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan, Hyperion 2012, pp. 28-29, hyperlinks added!): Most folk songs had grim, murderous content (and subtext). In Pretty Polly a man lures a young girl from her home with the promise of marriage,and then leads the pregnant girl to…
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A Curious Extrapolation
The old man's libido on the wane, he thinks more clearly and more truly about sexual matters. And when the waning of all his physical forces and endowments reaches its term — will he then think best of all, or not at all? The dove soars through the air and imagines it could soar higher…
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Divine Light, Sex, Alcohol, and Kerouac
If there is divine light, sexual indulgence prevents it from streaming in. Herein lies the best argument for continence. The sex monkey may not be as destructive of the body as the booze monkey, but he may be even more destructive of the spirit. You may dismiss what I am saying here either by denying…
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Mirabile Dictu: Playboy to Drop Nudity
Reports the NYT. Commentary by Mollie Hemingway: Mollie: This is the most interesting paragraph in the New York Times article: When Mr. Hefner created the magazine, which featured Marilyn Monroe on its debut cover in 1953, he did so to please himself. ‘If you’re a man between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy is…
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Like a Moth to the Flame
Jean van Heijenoort was drawn to Anne-Marie Zamora like a moth to the flame. He firmly believed she wanted to kill him and yet he travelled thousands of miles to Mexico City to visit her where kill him she did by pumping three rounds from her Colt .38 Special into his head while he slept.…
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Modality, Possible Worlds, and the Accidental-Essential Distinction
This from a reader: The Stanford Encyclopedia notes in its article on Essential vs. Accidental Properties, "A modal characterization of the distinction between essential and accidental properties is taken for granted in nearly all work in analytic metaphysics since the 1950s.” Personally, I find modal definitions of this type very hand wavy. Ed Feser states my objection…