Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Varia

  • A Curious Use of ‘Essence’

    J. K. Rowling: Being a woman isn't an essence, it's a material, provable fact. I'm not a female human being because society or history made me one, or because I picked the 'woman' category on some metaphysical spreadsheet. I'm a woman because I was born with the equipment to produce large gametes.

  • Identify the Quotation!

    Who said it? A post-liberal, an anti-liberal, Carl Schmitt? Blood rises up against formal understanding, race against the rational pursuit of ends, honor against profit, bonds against the caprice that is called 'freedom,' organic totality against individualistic dissolution, valor against bourgeois security, politics against the primacy of the economy, state against society, folk against the…

  • Stupor Bowl LIX

    Two reasons to watch:  Trump will be there; DOGE will run commercials. For twelve reasons not to watch see here. You may enjoy a thoughtful rant of mine from 2016, Stupor Bowl or Super Bore? Elon Musk on DOGE.

  • Travel and the Indifference of Places

    Malcolm Pollack writing from Ha Long Bay, near Hanoi, Vietnam: . . . mainly I’m writing just now to note how little enthusiasm I have for travel these days. I’ve been all over the place in my lengthening life (I’ll be 69 in April), and more and more it seems to me that every place…

  • Melania and Donald

    She supplies the class that he lacks. As witness her coy reserve re: the Trump dance.

  • Misplaced Moral Enthusiasm

    Languishing in the archives of one of the early versions of this weblog is a post bearing the above title. I shall have to resurrect, refurbish, and re-post it.  An excellent recent example of misplaced moral enthusiasm is well-described in Spring the Felon, Kill the Squirrel. This short article may help you leftists understand why…

  • Stripes Urgent Care

    On the wall: "By his stripes you shall be made whole." Isaiah 53:5 Curious. I had the good sense not to query the sweet young receptionist about the inscription: Is bloodletting practiced here?

  • Why Do Men Arise So Early?

    I am the king of the early risers. No one beats me out of the sack. I get up so early I can't decide whether I'm an early bird or a night owl.  But I'm avis rara for sure. InsideHook You may also enjoy my latest Substack upload, Rise and Shine with Manny.

  • ‘Liberal’ Signage

    I happened across the following professionally-made sign the other morning: NO ILLEGAL DUMPING I kid you not. 

  • The Ever-Increasing Frenzy, Tension, and Explosiveness of this Country

    Try to guess when the following was written, and by whom.  Answer below the fold: Ever increasing frenzy, tension, explosiveness of this country. You feel it in the monastery with people like Raymond. In the priesthood with so many upset, one way or another, and so many leaving.  So many just cracking up, falling apart.…

  • A Platonist at Breakfast

    Amazing what one can unearth with the WayBack Machine. This one first saw daylight on 3 March 2005.  ………………………… I head out early one morning with the wife in tow. I’m going to take her to a really fancy joint this time, the 5 and Diner, a greasy spoon dripping with 1950's Americana. We belly…

  • My First Substack Humor Upload

    Check it out. I'm as serious as cancer, but not 24/7/365.

  • Curiously Apropos of Current Developments

    Time to wake up, kiddies. It's going on 5:30 local time.  Me, I've been up since 1:58, filled two notebook pages with hand-scribble, and did my time on the black mat with a black cat in my lap. 

  • Linkage

    Sohrab Ahmari, Can Trump be Stopped? Paul Gottfried, Why Lenin is No Longer Relevant Samuel Gregg, Knowledge's Limits and a Nobel Economist's Humility Victor Davis Hanson, The Hysterical Style in American Politics D. Parker, Can the Left Peacefully Coexist with Us? My answer: No. Investment tip: buy Au and Pb.  

  • You Know You Love Her . . .

    . . .  when you find charming in her what would be annoying in others.