Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

  • Pleasure in the Petty

    We humans are ineluctably petty in various ways. It can't helped. And so we can't be faulted for the occasional pleasure we take in the petty particulars of the quotidian round, such as the way the towels are arranged on the rack or the way the lazy cats are splayed upon the bed.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Abortion and the Wages of Concupiscence Unrestrained

    Why do the arguments against abortion have such little effect?

    Substack latest.

    See also Anthony G. Flood, Abortion, euphemism, and moral evasion.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Courage

    Mut verloren — alles verloren!
    Da wär es besser, nicht geboren!
    To lose courage is to lose everything, in which case it would have been better never to have been born.
     
    A few stabs at rhyme-preserving translation:
    Of courage shorn, of everything shorn!
    In that case better, never to have been born!
    Courage lost — everything lost!
    Then having been born's too high a cost!
    Loss of courage, something fatal!
    Better then, never natal!
    Loss of heart — loss of all!
    'Twould then have been better, not to be at all!
    Bill Vallicella

  • A Riddle I Posed Two Years Ago

    If Joe Biden is elected, who will be president? 

    Bill Vallicella

  • Democracy and Abortion Law

    There is no need for me to make the point when Malcolm Pollack has made it so well:

    As a detached observer, I have to ask: If the two most important things in the moral universe are Democracy and abortion law, why is it a catastrophe when the Court decides that abortion law should be determined democratically? All that the Court has said in the leaked opinion is, in effect, this:

    “You folks seem to care a very great deal about the sovereignty of the people. Very well, then — if you really are fit to rule yourselves, here is a vexatiously difficult question upon which the Constitution is silent, and which, therefore, must be decided by the sovereign power of the nation. (That’s you, the People, in case you haven’t been following along, you knuckleheads!) We were wrong to take this sovereign power away from you back in ’73, and so now we’re giving it back to you.

    Happy Democracy! Mind how you go.”

    The response to all this, however, from the ironically named Democrats, has been to explode with anger that such an important issue might actually have to be worked out in a democratic fashion, by things like debating and voting. And perhaps that’s reasonable, because we don’t do any of that very well at all anymore; it seems that we are actually rather farther along in the great cycle of Polybius than the people running things would care to admit.

    So, here we are, America: you’ve been doing a lot of yelling about “MUH DEMOCRACY” lately, and now it looks like you’re about to be served up a heaping helping of it. If you don’t really want it after all, that’s, fine — but in that case I think we’d be glad if you would please shut the hell up about it.

    Addendum (5/13)

    Malcolm above implies that the abortion question is "vexatiously difficult." In one sense it is and in another sense it isn't.  Clarity will be served if we distinguish these two senses. I will begin with the second.

    1) I take the central abortion question to be the question whether the aborting (and thus the intentional killing) of human fetuses is morally permissible at every stage of fetal development for any reason the mother may have. (I don't doubt that there are some good prima facie reasons for permitting abortion at any stage of pregnancy in such special cases as rape, etc.)   Now if this is the question, then it has a fairly easy answer: no, abortion is not morally permissible.  For we all accept — I hope — that there is a general moral prohibition against the intentional killing of innocent human beings.  Now human fetuses are human and they are innocent. It follows that the general prohibition against the intentional killing of innocent human beings extends to pre-natal human beings at every state of gestation. More needs to be said to counter various misunderstandings and objections, but that was fairly easy, don't you think?

    2) The question becomes difficult and vexing when we descend from the general level to that of a particular woman in particular circumstances who becomes pregnant, but didn't intend to become pregnant, and doesn't want to be pregnant for whatever reason (she can't afford another child; giving birth will interfere with her career plans; she wants to go to Europe, etc.) It is not very difficult to know what ONE ought to do; what is difficult is to do it. For then it is not ONE who is doing it, but YOU. 

    To put it in Kantian terms, duty and inclination come into conflict at the level of the individual agent.  I know what I ought to do, but I am very strongly inclined not to do it, and if I live in a permissive society the mores and laws of which allow me to do what is morally wrong, I will probably "go the way of all flesh," follow the path of least resistance and then put my intellect to work rationalizing my decision to take the easy way out, and then make use of the decadent West's multiple opportunities for 24-7 distraction to induce amnesia  about what I did.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Does the Demonic Play a Role in the Politics of the Day?

    This just in from Vito Caiati:

    Your thought provoking post An Oligarchic Pathocracy and in particular the twenty characteristics of this collective psychological derangement, each of which is an absolute inversion of the natural, the good, and the rational, leads me to consider whether potent demonic (Satanic) forces are at work here and now, either directly or through possessed human agents, forces whose presence is unnoticed, since it falls beyond the scope of the established explanatory frameworks of the social sciences. Although such an account may seem farfetched, I find that I must at least entertain the possibility of its validity, given evilness of the political and social destruction and the moral and cultural darkness propagated by the pathocratic Left:  Evil is instantiated in everything it touches.  Does this seem too farfetched to you?

    Too farfetched? Not so farfetched as to be beneath consideration. Of course, proper method requires that we search first for naturalistic explanations.  This methodological principle is accepted not only by naturalists, who will omit the word 'first' in my formulation, but also by those who hold that certain phenomena are explainable only by supernatural agency.  (See for example the criteriology set forth by the great Spanish mystic Theresa of Avila in her Interior Castle for the assessment of the veridicality of certain mystical states, and also the procedures of the Church of Rome for the evaluation of putative miracles of different kinds, the Marian apparitions, stigmata, Therese Neumann, Padre Pio, et al. , and so on.) 

    A committed naturalist will of course never accept any supernatural explanation of any occurrence however unusual and apparently inexplicable. He will either proffer a naturalistic explanation or, in the absence of a convincing one, state that there must be one whether or not we ever find it.  The italicized phrase signals the naturalist's a priori and presuppositional commitment to naturalism, to the metaphysical scheme according to which reality is exhausted by the space-time system and its contents. The naturalist 'knows' a priori and thus in advance of any particular investigation into any putative apparition, etc., that nothing could possibly be evidence of supernatural agency.  Nothing will be allowed by the naturalist to count as evidence against his naturalism.  To misuse, as in common parlance, the word 'theological,' there s something 'theological' about the naturalist's naturalism and his scientism. (Scientism is the epistemology of naturalism.)

    Consider the case of the Russian monk, Rasputin. He was a hard man to kill, so hard to kill that some will surmise that he was under demonic protection. But there are naturalistic explanations of his toughness that are implausible, perhaps, but not impossible.  Adolf Hitler was another man who proved hard to kill until he decided to do the job himself.  I myself am open to the possibility that he 'enjoyed' demonic protection, but the evidence of its actuality is far from compelling.

    Can we definitively rule out demonic interference in human affairs and thus in our politics? No. There is no proof of naturalism.  

    While I cannot prove that there is demonic involvement in our affairs, it is reasonable to believe that there is. Here I argue that there is no plausible naturalistic explanation of  the ubiquity, magnitude, and horrific depth of moral evil. Fidel Castro, for example, that hero of the Left, did not merely imprison his political opponents for their dissent; he had them tortured in unspeakable ways.

    Bill Vallicella

    2 responses to “Does the Demonic Play a Role in the Politics of the Day?”

  • A Timid Plea for Freedom of Speech

    JULIUS EVOLA wrote a fascinating introduction to Pali Buddhism. You say Evola was a fascist? Well, Jean-Paul Sartre was a Stalinist; Gottlob Frege was an anti-Semite (according to Michael Dummett); Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt were members of the Nazi Party. Are those affiliations good reasons to not read these great authors? Not to a sane person. Only to an anti-civilizational termite.
     
    No book burning, no de-platforming! Stand up for free speech and open inquiry! To hell with the Left and its index librorum prohibitorum.
     
    To hell with the Democrat Party.
    Bill Vallicella

  • A Gun is not a Talisman and a ‘Liberal’ can be a Bigot

    A gun is not a talisman. Its mere presence won't protect you. To paraphrase Col. Jeff Cooper, owning a gun no more makes you armed than owning a guitar makes you a musician. You will need to get training. In the course of this training and numerous trips to the shooting range and gun stores for ammo, etc., you will find yourself associating whether you like it or not with rednecks, country folk, blue collar types, cops, ex-cops, military, ex-military, church-goers and other subspecies of the people Obama derisively referred to as "clingers" and Hillary as "deplorables."
     
    The danger here for 'liberals' is that they will learn that, in the main, these are decent people.  'Liberal' bigotry fueled by hate and ignorance will stand refuted by experience. This may cause such painful cognitive dissonance that they may no longer be able to remain bien-pensant 'liberals.'
     
    They have been forewarned.
    Bill Vallicella

  • An Oligarchic Pathocracy

    That may well be what we have going in the good old USA at present. You decide.

    Oligarchy: a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes. (Merriam-Webster)

    Pathocracy: "A system of government . . . wherein a small pathological minority takes control over a society of normal people." (Andrew M. Lobaczewski, Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of Totalitarianism,  Red Pill Press, 2022, p.  195.)

    What are some characteristics of normal people? Normal people understand and can explain the difference between men and women.  Normal people grasp instantly the unfairness of allowing biological males to compete in female sporting events.   Normal people understand that "Words mean things" (Rush Limbaugh) and must not be hijacked to Left coast destinations. Normal people have moral sense enough to know that it is wrong to lie in the manner of Joe Biden, Alejandro Mayorkas and the rest of the pathocrats in control of the country.  Normal people understand that 'equity' is a sham construct designed to elide the self-evident distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

    From the Pathocracy Blog:

    Pathocracy

    from Greek pathos, “feeling, pain, suffering”; and kratos, “rule”

    A totalitarian form of government in which absolute political power is held by a psychopathic elite, and their effect on the people is such that the entire society is ruled and motivated by purely pathological values.

    A pathocracy can take many forms and can insinuate itself covertly into any seemingly just system or ideology. As such it can masquerade under the guise of a democracy or theocracy as well as more openly oppressive regimes.

    Characteristics

    1. suppression of individualism and creativity.
    2. impoverishment of artistic values.
    3. impoverishment of moral values; a social structure based on self-interest and one-upmanship, rather than altruism.
    4. fanatical ideology; often a corrupted form of a valid viable ‘trojan’ ideology which is perverted into a pathological form, bearing little resemblance to the substance of the original.
    5. intolerance and suspicion of anyone who is different, or who disagrees with the state.
    6. centralized control.
    7. widespread corruption.
    8. secret activities within government, but surveillance of the general population. (In contrast, a healthy society would have transparent government processes, and respect for privacy of the individual citizen).
    9. paranoid and reactionary government.
    10. excessive, arbitrary, unfair and inflexible legislation; the power of decision making is reduced/removed from the citizens’ everyday lives.
    11. an attitude of hypocrisy and contempt demonstrated by the actions of the ruling class, towards the ideals they claim to follow, and towards the citizens they claim to represent.
    12. controlled media, dominated by propaganda.
    13. extreme inequality between the richest and poorest.
    14. endemic use of corrupted psychological reasoning such as paramoralisms, conversive thinking and doubletalk.
    15. rule by force and/or fear of force.
    16. people are considered as a ‘resource’ to be exploited (hence the term “human resources”), rather than as individuals with intrinsic human worth.
    17. spiritual life is restricted to inflexible and indoctrinare schemes. Anyone attempting to go beyond these boundaries is considered a heretic or insane, and therefore dangerous.
    18. arbitrary divisions in the population (class, ethnicity, creed) are inflamed into conflict with one another.
    19. suppression of free speech – public debate, demonstration, protest.
    20. violation of basic human rights, for example: restriction or denial of basic life necessities such as food, water, shelter; detainment without charge; torture and abuse; slave labour.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Quality and Equality

    Quality of life is what counts, not equality of outcome. To enforce the latter is to destroy the former.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Why be Consistent?

    Three types of consistency distinguished: logical, pragmatic, and Emersonian.

    Substack latest.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Why the Left Won’t Budge on Anything

    This from a long-time reader with my comments in blue:
     
    Really enjoy your site . . . .
     
    From north of the border, I'm watching the abortion chaos and the Machiavellian machinations of court document leakers. 
     
    Since having a child, I have come to the admittedly not the most logically airtight position on the matter: if a "fetus" exhibits "human" behaviours, it is in fact a baby and not a "clump of cells." After witnessing ultrasounds, and reading about thumb sucking, laughing, and other quintessentially human and very recognizable behaviours — say, around 17-18 weeks — that's the line I draw. It's a timeframe which, while not exact, is a demarcation point after which I'd find any termination so-called, ugly, ghoulish, and morally indefensible.  
     
    I ran this by a few people I know on the left, thinking I could perhaps find common ground. And no, I didn't. They won't concede any territory. And my position is the European one for the most part. And that means your left has not only caught up to that continent, but in some ways has eclipsed it in its lunacy. 
     
    As far as I can tell, they won't budge on anything. And therefore, by extension, there will be no principles the left and right can agree on (hell, that's basically the situation now). Plus, by controlling all facets of the education system, that won't change. 
     
    Right you are: the Left won't budge on anything. This is because they see politics as a form of warfare.  Too many conservatives, however, still see politics as gentlemanly debate under an umbrella of shared assumptions, values, and principles.  This puts conservatives at a disadvantage as I explain in an eponymous Substack article. In my contribution to Dissident Philosophers, I put it like this:
     
    For the culturally Marxist Left, politics is not a process of bargaining and accommodation based on mutually accepted norms between parties with common interests and a desire to coexist peacefully. Failing to appreciate that leftists embrace what could be called the converse Clausewitz principle—namely, that politics is war conducted by other means—puts classical liberals and conservatives at a disadvantage. They cannot bring themselves to believe that their political opponents are enemies who will do anything to win and are impervious to charges of “double standards” and “hypocrisy.” These conservatives allow their virtues to hobble them in their fight with enemies who reject conservative values but use them Alinsky-style against conservatives (as Saul Alinsky says, “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."
     
    Conservatives are at a second disadvantage in that they are political part-timers who understand that the political is a limited sphere, whereas leftists are full-time agitators beholden to the totalitarian conceit that the political exhausts the real. The left is totalitarian in that “to realize its agenda the left must invade and dominate the sphere of private life.” (Horowitz, David, Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes, Dallas: Spence Publishing, 1999, 88.) And this they do increasingly. (William F. Vallicella, "From Democrat to Dissident," in  Dissident Philosophers : Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy, edited by T. Allan Hillman, and Tully Borland, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021, pp. 261-277
     
    Augusto del Noce speaks of a new totalitarianism:
     
    Unlike Stalinism or Hitlerism, its main characteristic is not that of being a political movement that aims at world domination. It is marked, instead, by a quest to bring about the disintegration (dissoluzione) of one part of the world (in the case at hand, Europe). Nevertheless, the word totalitarianism is still appropriate because the essential features remain the same: the individual is extinguished and the idea of politics is subsumed within the idea of war, even in peace time. This means that all forms of criticism must be 'prevented' — whenever they are addressed at 'real power' — because, instead of advancing real arguments, supposedly they reflect or conceal the conservatism or reactionary spirit of a 'repressed psychology' . . . . ("Toward a New Totalitarianism" in The Crisis of Modernity, tr. Carlo Lancellotti, McGill-Queen's UP, 2014, p. 87
     
    Del Noce goes on to speak of a "denial of the universality of reason." This is why the new totalitarians do not respond rationally to arguments, but resort to shadow banning, deplatforming, shout-downs, and other forms of cancellation.  To these people it is all power at bottom, and all reasoning is a sham rationalizing of  underlying racial and class interests.
    Bill Vallicella

  • Real or Fake, Leftists Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste

    The Left not only exploits real problems for its political gain, it also manufactures problems for the same purpose. COVID-19 is real and so is Putin's war against Ukraine. But both are being used by the left to advance its agenda. We may reasonably differ about the extent to which these unfortunate developments have been and are being exploited by leftists, but no objective and fair-minded observer of the passing scene could deny the fact of the exploitation.

    When the Left runs out of real crises, it creates more out of thin air.  Our distinguished president recently informed us of the terrible threat posed by 'ghost guns.'  Here is a definition from the reflexively left-leaning  Brady site:

    Ghost guns are unserialized and untraceable firearms that can be bought online and assembled at home. 

    This definition makes no sense. The (proper) parts of a firearm are not firearms. If I buy a kit of unassembled parts, I have not bought a firearm, and if I by a firearm, I have not bought the unassembled parts of one. But I am famously charitable and so I offer the following coherent reformulation:

    Ghost guns are unserialized and untraceable firearms the parts of which can be bought online and assembled at home. 

    Is there a problem here? If there is, it pales in comparison with the problem of our unenforced and wide open southern border across which all sorts of things and people are flooding to the detriment of the Republic. Among the contraband: guns.

    You would have to be quite blind not to see that the Biden bunch is deploying one diversionary tactic after another.

    Bill Vallicella

  • ‘Infra Dig’

    Can you dig it? Substack latest.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Nulla Dies Sine Linea

    No photo description available.

    No day without a line. But why keep a journal?

    Bill Vallicella

Latest Comments

  2. Hi Bill Addis’ Nietzsche’s Ontology is readily available on Amazon, Ebay and Abebooks for about US$50-60 https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=addis&ch_sort=t&cm_sp=sort-_-SRP-_-Results&ds=30&dym=on&rollup=on&sortby=17&tn=Nietzsche%27s%20Ontology

  3. It’s unbelievable that people who work with the law are among the ranks of the most sophists, demagogues, and irrational…

  4. https://www.thefp.com/p/charles-fain-lehman-dont-tolerate-disorder-charlie-kirk-iryna-zarutska?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

  6. Hey Bill, Got it now, thanks for clarifying. I hope you have a nice Sunday. May God bless you!

  7. Vini, Good comments. Your command of the English language is impressive. In my penultimate paragraph I wrote, “Hence their hatred…

  8. Just a little correction, since I wrote somewhat hastily. I meant to say enemies of the truth (not from the…

  9. You touched on very, very important points, Bill. First, I agree that people nowadays simply want to believe whatever the…

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