Category: Social and Political Philosophy
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We Are All Bothered by Different Things
Brian Kennedy, A Passion to Oppose: John Anderson, Philosopher, Melbourne University Press, 1995, p. 141: Melbourne intellectuals came to regard [John] Anderson 'as the man who had betrayed the Left, a man who had gone over to the other side. Melburnians wanted Anderson to answer a simple question: was he or was he not interested…
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Ernst Bloch on Law and the State (Revised)
This is a revision of an entry originally posted on 11 February 2010. Ernst Bloch, like Theodor Adorno, is a leftie worth reading. But here are two passages replete with grotesque exaggeration and plain falsehood. Later, perhaps, I will cite something from Bloch that I approve of. The offensive passages are from the essay, "Karl Marx,…
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Morris Berman on Censorship
There are still some posts from my first weblog that have not been tranferred to this, the latest incarnation of MavPhil. What follows was first posted over ten years ago, on 4 August 2004. Reproduced verbatim. …………… I am reading Morris Berman, The Twilight of American Culture (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2000, paperback…
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Cops: A Necessary Evil
I don't much like law enforcement agents (qua law enforcement agents) and I try to avoid contact with them, not because I violate laws or have something to hide, but because I understand human nature, and I understand how power corrupts people, not inevitably, but predictably. Cops and sheriffs are too often arrogant, disrespectful, and…
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More on the Rationality of Political Ignorance
Alex L. writes, "I was interested in the post where you mentioned voting rationality. I've heard this argument as well — that the chance your vote will influence elections is minuscule, so it's not rational to vote." But that is not the argument. The argument is not to the conclusion that it is not rational…
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The Rationality of Political Ignorance
There are those who love to expose and mock the astonishing political ignorance of Americans. According to a 2006 survey, only 42% of Americans could name the three branches of government. But here is an interesting question worth exploring: Is it not entirely rational to ignore events over which one has no control and withdraw…
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Response to an Objection to My Last ‘Hobby Lobby’ Post
Dennis Monokroussos writes, Your post on why the left “went ballistic” over the Hobby Lobby case was well-done as usual, and I for one was grateful for your emphasis that the so-called contraceptives in question were really abortifacients, and that the latter is not a proper adjective for the former. I do have a couple…
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Could I Pass an Ideological Turing Test?
Could I present liberal-left ideas in such a way that the reader could not tell that I was not a liberal? Let me take a stab at this with respect to a few 'hot' topics. This won't be easy. I will have to present liberal-left ideas as plausible while avoiding all mention of their flaws. …
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Why has the Left ‘Gone Ballistic’ over Hobby Lobby?
It is hard for many of us to understand why so many leftists have worked themselves up into a frothing frenzy over the 5-4 SCOTUS Hobby Lobby decision, a frenzy that in the notable cases of Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton has spilled over into shameless lying. But even among those lefties who are not…
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The Fundamental Division in U. S. Politics
George F. Will, drawing upon Timothy Sandefur, maintains that The fundamental division in U.S. politics is between those who take their bearings from the individual’s right to a capacious, indeed indefinite, realm of freedom, and those whose fundamental value is the right of the majority to have its way in making rules about which specified…
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Political Lawlessness Viewed Philosophically at Twilight
It is twilight time for a great nation. One indication is the rise of political lawlessness.* Should this trouble the philosopher? Before he is a citizen, the philosopher is a "spectator of all time and existence" in a marvellous phrase that comes down to us from Plato's Republic (486a). The rise and fall of great…
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The State Under Leftism
Although the state under leftism is totalitarian and demands conformity and submission in matters of moment, it tolerates and indeed encourages the cultivation of a politically inconsequential individualism of private self-absorption. A people given bread (food stamps and other forms of infantilizing dependency), circuses (mass sporting events), dope (legalization of marijuana), pornography, politically correct propaganda,…
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Politics and Ridicule
Dennis Prager was complaining one day about how the Left ridicules the Right. He sounded a bit indignant. He went on to say that he does not employ ridicule. But why doesn't he? He didn't say why, but I will for him: Because he is a gentleman who exemplifies the good old conservative virtue of…
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The Mad Monarchist
London Karl sent me to The Mad Monarchist, not that he agrees with it. Apparently, there is no position on any topic that someone won't defend. But we've known that for a long time. Descartes said something to that effect. Is anarchism the opposite of monarchism? Anarchism is to political philosophy as eliminative materialism is…
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Machiavelli, Arendt, and Virtues Private and Public
An important but troubling thought is conveyed in a recent NYT op-ed (emphasis added): Machiavelli teaches that in a world where so many are not good, you must learn to be able to not be good. The virtues taught in our secular and religious schools are incompatible with the virtues one must practice to safeguard…