Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

  • Ronald Radosh on David Horowitz: A Critical Appreciation

    On very rare occasions, something surfaces at The Bulwark worth reading.

    Radosh, who is well worth reading, gives his take on Horowitz's flipping of his ideological script, and takes him to task for his late extremism. But how is this judgment by Radosh not itself extreme:

    What David is being celebrated for is the opposite of the introspective and empathetic writer, a thoughtful and moderate conservative, evident in his personal books. And his supporters give him credit for helping to create the most repulsive and nasty of the Trump entourage, Stephen Miller, who of course, added his own tribute to David. Another right-wing extremist protégé, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, wrote to single out David’s responsibility for Miller’s career in these words . . . .

    What hatreds politics sires! I am reminded of something I wrote in From Democrat to Dissident:

    We were friends for a time, but friendship is fragile among those for whom ideas matter. Unlike the ordinary nonintellectual person, the intellectual lives for and sometimes from ideas. They are his oxygen and sometimes his bread and butter. He takes them very seriously indeed and with them differences in ideas. So the tendency is for one intellectual to view another whose ideas differ as not merely holding incorrect views but as being morally defective in so doing. Why? Because ideas matter to the intellectual. They matter in the way doctrines and dogmas mattered to old-time religionists. If one’s eternal happiness is at stake, it matters infinitely whether one “gets it right” doctrinally. If there is no salvation outside the church, you had better belong to the right church. It matters so much that one may feel entirely justified in forcing the heterodox to recant “for their own good.”

    Addendum (5/9)

    Here is Stephen Miller in action. Trenchant, but wholly on target, and the reprobates who are the recipients of the trenchancy richly deserve it. Miller is neither repulsive nor nasty by any sane measure.  Perhaps someone should ask Radosh which side he is on these days.

    Would that the extremity of the political polarization of the present could be avoided, including the polarization over polarization itself, its nature, causes, effects, and who is responsible for it. I say they are responsible for it.   Our positions are moderate; theirs are extreme. 

    For example, James Carville, the "ragin' Cajun," is poles apart from the sane and reasonable Victor Davis Hanson.  Bang on the links and see for yourself.  But 'see' is not the right word inasmuch as leftists are blind and can't see 'jack.' How explain such blindness, such intransigence, such praeter-natural feculence of brain, perversity of will, foulness of heart?

    I find it endlessly fascinating. Polarization, I mean. Why this depth of disagreement? But it's all grist for the mill, blog-fodder for the Bill.

    For another example, compare Newt Gingrich's sanity to its lack in one  who is "terrified" at Trump's judicial picks.

    Addendum (5/10): polarization update 

    TDS at TNR:

    Living under a far-right authoritarian regime that is gutting every American institution that keeps people safe, alive, and connected to a thriving civilization, we have to keep asking ourselves how we got here—and how we can get out. And the most important factor in Donald Trump’s win was that Kamala Harris lost.

    Trump has run for president three times and Harris is the only person to have lost the popular vote to him. In 2024, he had no special magic; if anything, he was marred as a felon and a failed coup leader. A major part of the problem was Harris, who embodies the change-nothing politics of Hillary Clinton without the latter’s political savvy; and the cautiousness of Joe Biden without his populist instincts.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Heaven and Hell: the Looming of the Last Things at the End of the Trail

    A friend of mine, nearing the end of the trail, afflicted in body and soul, writes:
     
    A question, my friend. Can you imagine someone on his deathbed saying, "Well I never really believed I'd meet Jesus, but the possible reward (eternal salvation) was so great that I was persuaded to be a believer so long as the probability of salvation was not effectively zero. I can't say I really believe in Jesus, but the possible rewards of believing are so great I had to buy the ticket." A decision-theoretic argument for belief that some think can made stronger by also postulating Hell (eternal damnation). If I don't believe, I risk Hell, even if I think the probability of that is very small.
     
    Well, the Hell branch of the argument has the problem that eternal damnation is incompatible with a just and benevolent deity. Way too many people are sent to Hell for merely not believing (especially children). So what about Heaven? Can a just and benevolent God reward me with eternal happiness just for believing in (and maybe worshipping) him? Just as the threatened punishment seems totally disproportionate, so the promised reward seems "too good to be true" (in other words, a scam).
     
    Not necessarily MY view of Heaven, but one that I hear often.
     
    As for hell, I tend to agree with my friend.
     
    Suppose God exists and there is an afterlife the quality of which depends on how one behaves here below.  Suppose that the justice which is largely absent here will be meted out there.  And suppose we take as a moral axiom that the punishment must fit the crime.  The question then arises: what crime or series of crimes by any human being could merit everlasting post-mortem punishment?  I would say that no crime or series of crimes would merit such punishment.  Thus it is offensive to my moral sense that a just God would punish everlastingly a human evildoer. 
     
    Two qualifications. (1) It is reasonably presumed to be  otherwise with angelic evildoers such as Lucifer, so let's leave them out of the discussion.   (2) It is also reasonably presumed to be otherwise if a human, whether evildoer or not, wanted to maintain himself in a state of rebellion against God, after coming face-to-face with God, in which case my moral sense would have no problem with God's granting the rebel his wish and maintaining him in a state of everlasting exclusion from the divine light and succor.  Candidate rebels: Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Josef Stalin.

    Suppose that, after death, Stalin sees the errors of his ways and desires to come into right relation with God.  He must still be punished for his horrendous crimes. Surely justice demands that much.  What I fail to grasp, however, is how justice could demand that Stalin be punished everlastingly or eternally (if you care to distinguish eternity from everlastingness) for a finite series of finite crimes. 

    Thomas Aquinas disagrees:

    The magnitude of the punishment matches the magnitude of the sin. Now a sin that is against God is infinite; the higher the person against whom it is committed, the graver the sin—it is more criminal to strike a head of state than a private citizen—and God is of infinite greatness. Therefore an infinite punishment is deserved for a sin committed against Him. (Summa Theologica, Ia2ae. 87, 4.)

    Some years back, my friend floated the suggestion that we are in hell right now. This can't be right, for reasons I won't go into. But it is reasonably held that we are right now in purgatory. The case is made brilliantly and with vast erudition by Geddes MacGregor in Reincarnation in Christianity (Quest Books, 1978,  see in particular, ch. 10. "Reincarnation as Purgatory.")

    As for heaven, my friend asks,

    Can a just and benevolent God reward me with eternal happiness just for believing in . . . him? Just as the threatened punishment seems totally disproportionate, so the promised reward seems "too good to be true" . . . .

    The question is essentially this:  If justice rules out everlasting, 'infinite,' punishment for finite crimes committed by miserably limited humans, does it also rule out everlasting reward for finite good deeds? If the threatened punishment is totally disproportionate, is the promised reward also totally disproportionate?

    To sharpen it a bit further, let's translate the interrogative into a declarative:  If no everlasting punishment is justified, then no everlasting reward is either.  If that is the claim, then I would respond by saying that the Beatific Vision is not a reward  for good things we do here below, but the state intended for us all along.  It is something like a birthright or an inheritance.  One doesn't earn one's inheritance; it is a gift, not a reward.   But one can lose it.  Similarly with the Beatific Vision.  One cannot earn it, and one does not deserve it.  But one can lose it.

    It is also worth noting that 'totally disproportionate' and 'too good to be true' differ in sense.  The visio beata is admittedly totally disproportionate as a reward  for the good things that we wretched mortals do, but that is not to say that it is too good to be true.  If it is true that our ultimate felicity is participation in the divine life, and true that this participation is open to us, as a  real possibility and a divine gift, then that is the way things are. How could it be too good to be true?  Whatever good thing exists, precisely because it exists ,cannot be too good to exist.

    Concluding Existential-Practical  Postscript

    What I really want to say to my friend is that, while these philosophical and theological problems are genuine and important, they cannot be resolved on the theoretical plane.  In the end, after canvassing all the problems and all the arguments for and against, one simply has to decide what one will believe and how one will live. In the end, the will comes into it.  The will must come into it, since nothing in this area can be proven, strictly speaking. The 'presuppers' are out to lunch, to mention one bunch of those who fabricate a fake certainty for themselves to assuage their overwhelming doxastic security needs. And the same goes for the Biblical inerrantists.  The will comes into it, as I like to say, because the discursive intellect entangles itself in problems it cannot unravel.  

    In my own case, I have had enough mystical, religious, aesthetic, moral, and paranormal experiences to convince me to take the Unseen Order with utmost seriousness — and I do. And so that's the way I live, devoting most of my time to prayer, meditation-contemplation, lectio divina, study of the great classics of philosophy and theology, moderate ascesis, such good works as befit my means and station, and writing philosophy, which I view as itself a spiritual practice.  I mean: what could be a better use of a life than to try to ascend to the Absolute by all possible routes?  But this won't make any sense to you unless you perceive this world, the Seen Order, to be a vanishing quantity devoid of ultimate reality and value, and our fleeting lives in it unsatisfactory and ultimately meaningless, if they end in annihilation.  

    So I say to my friend: you are on your own. Going to a church and participating in external rites and rituals won't do you much if any good, nor will confessing your sins to a pedophile priest. (Ex opere operato is on my list of topics to discuss.) There is no need to go outside yourself; truth dwells in the inner man. Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi. In interiore homine habitat veritas. (Augustine) Review your life and try to recall those moments and those experiences which seemed most revelatory of the Real, and live and then die in accordance with them. 

    In the face of temptation, ask yourself: How do I want death to find me? In what state?  The lures of this world are alluring indeed, and it is well-nigh impossible to resist them, as witness the corruption of (some of) the cardinals who voted on the new pope. You have a sense of the Unseen Order if you sense that temptation ought to be resisted.  Whence the bindingness of that Ought? Whence the vocation to a Higher Life?  Are they just illusions of brain chemistry? Could be! You decide!

    I myself have decided that The Greatest Temptation must be resisted.

    One more point about church-going. It may be necessary for those excessively social animals lacking inner directedness, but I'd say that Matthew 6:6 hits the mark: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." (KJV)

    But I don't want to deny that special places, some of them churches, have an aura that aids and may even induce contemplative repose.  I recall a time in Venice, Italy when I entered an ancient and nondescript little church and spent a few moments there alone. Upon exiting, I was unusually calm and collected.  My girlfriend at the time, noticing the transformation,  remarked, "You ought to go to church more often." The following, though AI-generated, is spot on. 

    Aura of Places

    An aura of a place can be described as a distinctive atmosphere or feeling that seems to surround and emanate from it. This term is often used metaphorically to convey the unique quality or vibe that a location gives off. For example, a place might have an aura of mystery, tranquility, or invincibility.

    In spiritual contexts, auras are thought to be energy fields surrounding all living and non-living things, including places. These fields can be influenced by the emotions, thoughts, and experiences of those who frequent the location.

     

    Bill Vallicella

  • Rogues in Bergoglio’s Footsteps

    The truth is too magnificent a thing to be the the property of any one religious institution.  Too magnificent a thing, and too elusive a thing to be owned or housed or patented or reduced to the formulas of a sect or finitized or fought over.

    Institutions too often value their own perpetuation over the fulfillment of their legitimate mandates. Examples are legion. This observation occurred to me last year as I watched Representative Chip Roy's grilling of the prevaricating FBI director Christopher Wray.  It is especially pertinent to churches of whatever stripe. 

    Idolatry is ubiquitous. Bibliolatry and ecclesiolatry are species thereof, not that 'Romanists' could be accused of the former.

    Things are not looking good for the RCC. Jim Bowman reports.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Life in Time

    A life in time is a paltry substitute for eternal life, but at least we know we are alive, and in time, whereas we don't know much if anything about eternal life.  On rare occasions, however, some of us catch a glimpse of something that seems to fits the description.  These occasional glimpses fuel a faith that makes life in time a game worth the candle.

    Those who claim to know what they can only believe do a disservice to both knowledge and faith. 

    Bill Vallicella

  • Technical Difficulties

    Due to problems with the Typepad comment system, comments will not be accepted or answered until these problems can be resolved. This may take a while. Afflicted as I am with cacoethes scribendi, posting will continue.  I thank you for your 'patronage.'

    Bill Vallicella

  • The Presuppositionalist Challenge to My Position

    Substack latest.  

    Do not comment unless you have carefully read the entire article.

    Bill Vallicella

    One response to “The Presuppositionalist Challenge to My Position”

  • Illegal Alien on NYC Subway Rapes Corpse!

    Story here:

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) slammed The New York Times Saturday over a story about a suspect who allegedly raped a corpse on a New York City subway, saying the reporters failed to mention the man was in the U.S. illegally. 

    The defense will no doubt argue that the man cannot be guilty as charged inasmuch it is impossible to rape a corpse. Have the journos over at the NYT degenerated so far that they have never heard of necrophilia?  

    Or maybe the defense will argue that since illegal entry is no crime because no one is illegal, the same should hold for illegal entry into a living human's body, and for illegal entry into the corpse of a human.  There cannot be illegal entry in any sense since everyone has the right to go wherever he wants.  The corpse should have "welcomed the stranger."

    Bill Vallicella

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Cowboys of the Open Road

    Advanced AI and robotics may push us humans to the margin, and render many of us obsolete. I am alluding to the great Twilight Zone episode, The Obsolete Man. What happens to truckers when trucks drive themselves?  For many of these guys and gals, driving trucks is not a mere job but a way of life. 

    It is hard to imagine these cowboys of the open road  sitting in cubicles and writing code. The vices to which they are prone, no longer held in check by hard work and long days, may prove their destruction. The topic is huge and beyond my paygrade. In any case it's Saturday night,  I'm drinking a Jack and Coke, and dreaming of the open road.

    Sunday morning addendum: we need to think about the infantilization brought about by our technology.  Laura Trump interviewed Elon Musk last night on her show.  He will be scaling back his work on DOGE to get back to his various projects, including work on self-driving cars. One upside, though, is that the elderly will be able to retain their independence when they are no longer able to drive safely. Musk made  a comment to the effect that it won't be long before seeing a person driving a car will be as unusual as seeing someone traveling via horse and buggy.

    Eddy Rabbit, Drivin' My Life Away

    Dave Dudley, Six Days on the Road

    Buck Owens, Truck Drivin' Man

    Red Sovine, Phantom 309. Tom Waits' cover. 

    Lynyrd Skynyrd, Truck Drivin' Man

    Cody Jinks, Lost Highway

    Tony Justice, One Mile at a Time 

    Seatrain, I'm Willin'

    I've been warped by the rain
    Driven by the snow
    I'm drunk and dirty, and don't you know
    That I'm still, yes I'm still willin'

    I ride the highway, late at night
    I see my pretty Alice, in every headlight, Alice, Dallas Alice

    [Chorus] I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah
    I've driven every kind of truck that's ever been made
    I've even rode the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
    If you give me weed, whites, and wine
     Show me a sign, and I'll be willin' to keep on movin'

    . . .

    And I've been from Tucson to Mexicali, Tehachapi to Tonopah
    I've driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
    I've even rode the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
    If you give me weed, whites, and wine
    Show me a sign, and I'll be willin' to keep on movin' 

    Bill Vallicella

    4 responses to “Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Cowboys of the Open Road”

  • How Trump Won the Canadian Election

    Philip Cunliffe:

    In electing a consummate globalist to defend Canadian sovereignty, Canadian voters exhibited a voluble national pride more commonly seen south of the border. In that sense, even if Trump may not get his 51st state of the Union, he has nonetheless imposed the value of sovereignty and national independence on the archetypal post-national state. Far from signalling a global liberal rally against Trump, the fact that the liberals were only able to beat Trump by embracing the language of national independence, national interest, and sovereignty make clear that Carney’s electoral victory happened on Trumpian terrain. 

    Bill Vallicella

    2 responses to “How Trump Won the Canadian Election”

  • Finally! An End to Taxpaper Subsidization of NPR and PBS

    We conservatives have been talking about this for years, but it's all been talk. Until now.  A re-post from 10 December 2014:

    National Public Radio and the Tit of the State

    "If the product is so superior, why does it have to live on the tit of the State?" (Charles Krauthammer)

    One answer is that the booboisie  of these United States is too backward and benighted to appreciate the high level of NPR programming.  The rubes of fly-over country are too much enamored of wrestling, tractor pulls, and reality shows, and, to be blunt, too stupid and lazy to take in superior product.

    Being something of an elitist myself, I am sympathetic to this answer.  The problem for me is twofold.  NPR is run by lefties for lefties.  That in itself is not a problem.  But it is a most serious problem when part of the funding comes from the taxpayer.  But leftists, blind to their own bias, don't see the problem.  Very simply, it is wrong to take money by force from people and then use it to promote causes that those people find offensive or worse when the causes have nothing to do with the legitimate functions of government.  Planned Parenthood and abortion.  NEA and Piss Christ.  Get it?

    And then there is the recent anti-Christian nastiness.  Just in time for Christmas.  What a nice touch.  Would these 'liberal' pussies mock Muhammad similarly? 

    Second, we are in fiscal crisis.  If we can't remove NPR from the "tit of the State," from the milky mammaries of massive Mama Obama government, what outfit can we remove from said mammaries? If we can't zero out  NPR how are we going to cut back on the waste, fraud, and abuse of 'entitlement' programs such as Social Security?

    Ah, but no one wants to talk about a real crisis when there is Ferguson to talk about.

    Don't get me wrong.  I like or rather liked  "Car Talk" despite the paucity of automotive advice and the excess of joking around.  I even like the PBS "Keeping Up Appearances" in small doses.  But if frivolous flab like this can't be excised, what can?

    Bill Vallicella

    2 responses to “Finally! An End to Taxpaper Subsidization of NPR and PBS”

  • Stephen Miller Scorches the Dems

    Watch this video, five minutes. I saw Miller live yesterday deliver this speech and tear the Washington press corps to pieces. He blasted the bums as they deserved to be blasted. Thank you, David Horowitz, for mentoring Miller. Rest in peace, you fought the good fight.

    Bill Vallicella

    3 responses to “Stephen Miller Scorches the Dems”

  • Life is Hierarchical

    An old lie of leftists is compressed into one of their more recent abuses of language: 'equity.' So-called 'equity' is wokespeak for equality of outcome or result. 'Equity'  in this obfuscatory sense cannot occur and ought not be pursued.

    It cannot occur because people are not equal either as individuals or as groups. That is a plain fact. Leftists won't face it, however, because they confuse the world as they would like it to be with the world as it is. 

    'Equity' ought not be pursued because its implementation is possible only by the violation of the liberty of the individual by a totalitarian state apparatus precisely unequal in power to those it would equalize.

    Life is a ladder.  It is many ladders, as many as there are directions of achievement. On any ladder, some are above, some below. Look up without envy; look down without contempt. Climb as high as you can on as many ladders as you are on.  Lend a hand to those below; if any you help should surpass you, take satisfaction at your mentorship and pride in their accomplishment. 

    Bill Vallicella

  • Every Generation Faces a Barbarian Threat . . .

    . . . in its own children. 

    A Substack entry in honor of David Horowitz, recently passed, from whom we the teachable have learned so much. We salute you, sir, and we will carry on to the best of our limited abilities.

    David horowitz

    Bill Vallicella

    9 responses to “Every Generation Faces a Barbarian Threat . . .”

  • The Fall of Saigon

    Fifty years ago today. I wrote in my journal (30 April 1975):

    Saigon was overrun by the communists today. 150 billion dollars and 50,000 American lives wasted during the war.

    58,00 is now the standardly cited figure. Goeffrey Wawro, The Vietnam War: A Military History (Basic Books, 2024, 652 pp.):

    The war had killed 58,000 Americans, 250,000 ARVNs, [South Vietnamese army] half a million South Vietnamese civilians, and 1.4 million NVA [North Vietnamese army] and Viet Cong. Four million Vietnamese . . . had been killed or wounded. [. . .] In their rushed evacuation, the Americans left behind important files, including the names of 30,000 Vietnamese who had worked in the Phoenix Program. These people were the first to be rounded up, tortured, and killed by their "liberators." Two and a half million South Vietnamese were placed under arrest as nguy — "puppets." Anyone affiliated with the old regime was sent without trial to one of the 300 "thought-reforms" camps in rural areas. (529)

    Wawro goes on to describe the brutality of the labor camps and the 165,000 political prisoners who died in them. Like the Khmer Rouge, the NV commies lied to their victims, promising them a detention period of only ten days for "re-education." The vast majority of them fell for the lies and ended up detained for up to fifteen years in starvation conditions.

    The great David Horowitz died yesterday.  Here is a worthwhile article about the former red-diaper commie who came to his senses. Charlie Kirk pays his respects on X. Now I know how Stephen Miller came to be so astute:

    Twenty-five years ago, David mentored a high school student named Stephen Miller. He supported him through Duke, through the Senate, and into the Trump White House. Today, Stephen is one of the most impactful architects of America First immigration policy. A legend thanks to David's mentorship. As Politico wrote, “If you want to understand the immigration policies [Trump] has put into place, you have to also understand Horowitz.” David's fingerprints are all over the populist revival of the last decade.

    What did I do during the war?

    Around  the time of the Tet Offensive in January of 1968, I was ordered  to downtown Los Angeles for my "pre-induction physical." Due to a birth defect I have hearing in one ear only, and so I failed the physical. I was  classified 1-Y, which was later changed to 4-F.  In any case I had won a California State Scholarship to attend college, and that would have kept me from harm's way for four years, after which the lottery kicked in.

    That's my story in a few words. What's yours?

    Bill Vallicella

    2 responses to “The Fall of Saigon”

  • Political Crapulosity

    In the early 'eighties I subscribed to The New Republic. But in those days it hadn't yet become the politically crapulous rag it is now.  Try to wrap your head around this load of garbage:

    There is much to say about these 100 days. The odor of fascism is unmistakable—and entirely intentional. The bullying of universities and law firms . . . the purposeful lawlessness of so many actions, designed to force showdown after showdown at what Trump assumes will be a pliant Supreme Court; the daily inversion of reality peddled by Karoline Leavitt, Cabinet officials, and not least Trump himself.

    Refutation would be easy enough. But this stuff is beneath refutation. You don't refute lunatics or engage them in conversation. 

    We have a war on our hands, friends, and you'd better man and woman up.  Especially you young people who can expect to be around for a while.

    How much of this vitriolic filth is TDS and how much willfully perverse self-enstupidation? How could anyone in his right mind fail to see the good that  Trump has done in a scant 100 days?  

    You are well-advised to invest in precious metals in the broad sense of the term.  Our political enemies are just that, enemies: there can be no peace with them. I now seriously question whether we should remain polite in our dealings with them.

    Bill Vallicella

    8 responses to “Political Crapulosity”

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