Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

  • The Threat of Populism

    What does populism threaten?

    It is a threat to a leftist internationalism that rejects national borders and denies to nations the right to preserve their cultures, the right to stop illegal immigration, and the right to select those immigrants who are most likely to prove to be a net asset to the host country, and most likely to assimilate. There needn't be anything white supremacist or white nationalist about populism. (By the way, white supremacism and white nationalism are plainly different: a white nationalist needn't be a white supremacist.)  And of course there needn't be anything racist or xenophobic or bigoted about either nationalism or populism.

    Populism in the Trumpian style is not a threat to liberal democracy as the Founders envisioned it, but a threat to the leftist internationalism I have just limned and which contemporary 'liberals' confuse with the liberal democracy of the Founders. It is also quite telling that these 'liberals' constantly use the word 'democracy' as if it is something wonderful indeed, but they almost never mention that the USA is a democratic republic.  Our republic has a stiff backbone of core principles and meta-principles that are not up for democratic grabs, or at least are not up for easy grabs: the Constitution can be amended but it is not easy, nor should it be. 

    Those who think that democracy is a wonderful thing ought to realize that Sharia can be installed democratically. This is underway in Belgium. Brussels could be Muslim within 20 years.  Let enough Muslims infiltrate and then they will decide who 'the people' are and who are not 'the people.'  The native Belgians will then have been displaced. Ain't democracy wonderful?

    Let enough illegal aliens flood in, give them the vote, and they may decide to do away with the distinction between legal and illegal immigration as well as the one between immigration and emigration. Ever wonder why lefties like the word 'migrant?' It manages to elide both distinctions in one fell swoop.

    A sane and defensible populism rests on an appreciation of an insight I have aphoristically expressed as follows:

    No comity without commonality.

    There cannot be social harmony without a raft of shared assumptions and values, not to mention a shared language. There is need of "cultural coherence." A felicitous phrase, that. Our open, tolerant, Enlightenment culture cannot cohere and survive if Sharia-supporting Muslims are allowed to immigrate. For their ultimate goal is not to assimilate to our ways, but to impose their ways on us, eventually replacing us.

    Can you show I'm wrong?

    Bill Vallicella

  • Self-Love and Self-Respect

    Self-love can extend to love of the smell of one's own excrement, at which point self-respect raises an eyebrow. But are we not just clever land mammals? How is self-respect possible for such critters? It is actual, so it is possible. 

    Bill Vallicella

  • Be Here Now

    The practice thereof will do you good. You don't have to swallow the whole of Ram Dass, whose Be Here Now I read way back when.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Left-Wing McCarthyism

    Contemporary 'liberals' hunt for 'racists' the way MCarthyites in the 1950s hunted for Communists. Same way, different witches.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Spiritual Practices and Metaphysical Dogmas

    It would be foolish to let the dubiousness of metaphysical dogmas dissuade you from spiritual exercises and the good achievable by their implementation. Don't let the weakness of the three pillars supporting the Buddhist edifice, anatta, anicca, dukkha, keep you from a long and salutary session on the black mat.

    Related: A 'No' to 'No Self'

    Bill Vallicella

  • ‘Peninsulate’

    If 'insulate' is a word, from the Latin insula, insulae, island, then why not 'peninsulate,' v. i. meaning to insulate partially?  Example featuring an adjectival cognate:

    His is a peninsular life, a balanced life, neither continental not insular. While connected to the mainland of the traditional, the quotidian, and the commonsensical, a part of him stretches out into the oceanic Apeiron.

    Does your mother look askance at your new boyfriend? Perhaps the above sentence will take the edge off her disapprobation.

    Bill Vallicella

  • The Peninsular Man

    No man is an island. He can't be. Ought he be a continent? No.

    The healthy man is a peninsula. He is connected to the mainland, and nourished by that connection, but he doesn't allow himself to be influenced from all sides. A part of him juts into the oceanic. 

    The peninsular life is best.

    ……………………………….

    A long-time reader responds (30 November 2018):

    So I read your post just now a) at the outer extremity of a literal peninsula; b) linked to my life-partner only by the narrow isthmus of the telephone; c) suddenly disconnected from the quotidian working world by my recent layoff; d) having spent the last decade or two immersing myself in old books and questioning all that I thought I knew; and e) generally projecting myself further and further outward from the presentist mass-society craton into the "oceanic" of the past, the unknowable future, and the great mystery of creation and human awareness.

    In other words: peninsular.

    Many are the pleasures of blog. One is the pleasure of giving food for thought. Another is the pleasure of receiving appreciation.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Homo Loquax

    You know the type.  The one whose lack of understanding of a subject is no barrier to his talking about it.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Word of the Day: Dégringolade

    Merriam-Webster:  

    a rapid decline or deterioration (as in strength, position, or condition) : DOWNFALL

    Example from Why I Left by Jim Holt:

    I will now confess to the obvious: the foregoing account of my spiritual dégringolade, while true in every detail, is a caricature. My alienation from the Catholic Church was not mainly intellectual. It was moral, even emotional.

    Bill Vallicella

  • More on Tipping: A Server Weighs in with Insights and Advice

    Long-time reader R. B. sends us his thoughts:

    I appreciated your post. I am on the other side of the coin: I am a server and I depend on tips to help get me through nursing school. So hopefully I can help bring some insight. I agree with your overall point that one ought to tip based on service. Bad service? Bad tip. Excellent service? Excellent tip. The restaurant I work at bases my tip out (my pay out to the bar, bussers, food runners for their help) on my overall sales (4%); suppose I sell $1000 worth of food and beverages on a particular night; this means I dish out $40 of my tips out to those who directly helped me. So when I don’t get tipped (whether justified or not), I am still paying the tip out. I had a table of Europeans last week and the bill was around $400. If I did my job well—and I think I did—then I ought to have earned an $80 tip. Well, they left me zero. It happens. But here I am paying out $16; so I essentially had to pay to wait on this table! It usually evens out because some people are generous and see me busting my ass and tip over 20%. And if mistakes happen—which they do—99% of the time a nice attitude and an apology fix everything and I still get the 20%.
     
    Another important point is this: if you are nice to me (which is a low bar: just acknowledge I exist and have feelings), I will do everything within my power to get you free stuff. You asked me how my day was? I won’t charge you for that soda. You say please and thank you (embarrassingly enough you’d be surprised how many people don’t use these words at all)? I’ll get you that free dessert all on company moolah baby. I don’t expect a bigger tip when I do this, but you get my point. 
     
    I also notice this a lot: how you treat waitstaff directly correlates to a deep part of your character. It’s a good litmus test for first dates. I went on a date with a girl and she was rude/snippy to the server because our food was late. Guess what? 99% chance it was not the server’s fault. The kitchen is busy and things come out late during a dinner rush. Needless to say we didn’t go out again. How can you be rude to someone who is bringing you food and beverages? It blows my mind. 
     
    My personal rule is that I tip whenever and wherever I can. I rationalize it by thinking: how much will me giving this extra $1-2 actually affect me financially (*wink* famine and affluence)? The coffee shop? I tip like I would at a bar. The car wash? You bet. The dishwashers at my work? Certainly; they have the worst job in the entire restaurant and are not part of the tip out. And it’s nice because I know the money is going directly into their pocket and the government doesn’t see it (when it’s cash). Always tip in cash if you can.
     
    While there might not be a moral obligation to tip, to me it does show something about your character if the service was excellent and you stiffed them. If you are opposed to tipping at sit down restaurants, then don’t go to them—simple as that. 
     
    Some points:
     
    It’s dehumanizing when someone doesn’t acknowledge you or even looks at you in the eye. Be a decent person and say please and thank you.
     
    Don’t be rude because of mistakes (again: the vast majority of the time, the person you will tip had no control over it).
     
    Control your kids (most kids nowadays are sadly glued to phones or tablets so it’s not usually a problem).
     
    Don’t be a cheap bastard.
     
    Have a Merry Christmas!
    Bill Vallicella

  • On Tipping

    Here, in no particular order, are my maxims concerning the practice of tipping.

    1. He who is too cheap to leave a tip in a restaurant should cook for himself. That being said, there is no legal obligation to tip, nor should there be. Is there a moral obligation? Perhaps. Rather than argue that there is I will just state that tipping is the morally decent thing to do, ceteris paribus. And it doesn't matter whether you will be returning to the restaurant. No doubt a good part of the motivation for tipping is prudential: if one plans on coming back then it is prudent to establish good relations with the people one is likely to encounter again. But given a social arrangement in which waiters and waitresses depend on tips to earn a decent wage, one ought always to tip for good service. 

    2. Tip on the nominal amount of the bill, not the amount less a discount. You got the discount, you skin-flint coupon clipper, don't be so cheap as to demand a discount on the tip as well.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Happy Thanksgiving

    To all Stateside readers, and best wishes of the season to the rest of you.  Let's make it a politics-free day, shall we? I'll do my best, and you do yours.

    I am indeed grateful for your readership!

    If you care to read my Thanksgiving homilies and such, go here.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Conservatives, Liberals, and Happiness

    Here, at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

    I address the question of why conservatives are happier than liberals.

    Bill Vallicella

  • About Whataboutism

    What's with all the contemporary noise about 'whataboutism'?

    Example 1. A lefty complains, "Trump is a liar!"  A conservative responds, "What about Hillary and Bill and Obama? They are not liars?"

    Example 2. A pro-lifer argues that killing the prenatal is immoral and meets with the response, "What about all of the  'pro-lifers' who bomb abortion clinics, terrorize clinic staff, and block women’s legal access into such clinics?”

    On one way of looking at it, 'whataboutism' is just the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy.  It's old wine in a new, but very ugly, bottle.  If the question is whether Trump is a liar, then it is irrelevant to bring in Hillary and Bill and Obama, despite their being egregious and proven liars.  Similarly in the abortion case. The violence of a few pro-lifers is simply irrelevant to the question of the moral permissibility of abortion. Or suppose my doctor, who has cancer, diagnoses  cancer in me. It would be absurd for me to protest the diagnosis on the ground that the sawbones has it too. What about you, doc? 

    So can anything good be said about 'whataboutism'?

    Let's think a bit deeper about example 1. If a lefty points out Trump's undeniable flaws in an effort to show that he is unfit for office, then it is relevant to bring up Hillary's also undeniable flaws.  For if her considerable  flaws do not count against her fitness for high office, why should Trump's?

    Understood in this way, 'whataboutism' is not the fallacy of tu quoque, but a legitimate charge of double standard.  Trump is being held to a higher standard than Hillary.  

    If the question is simply about Trump's character, then Hillary's is irrelevant. But if the two are competing for the same office, and Trump's defects are cited as disqualifying, then it is relevant to bring up Hillary's. Not to do so would be to employ a double standard.

    One conclusion, I think, is that 'whataboutism' is a waste basket term that ought to be dumped. We  already have 'tu quoque fallacy' and 'double standard.'

    Besides, it is a barbarism. 

    Bill Vallicella

  • Patriotism and Nationalism: Dispelling Some Confusions

    Robert F. Gorman:

    St. John Paul II, addressing the themes of nation, nationality, and patriotism, stated: “It seems that nation and native land, like the family, are permanent realities. In this regard, Catholic social doctrine speaks of ‘natural’ societies, indicating that both the family and the nation have a particular bond with human nature, which has a social dimension.” Contrasting patriotism to nationalism, he noted that the former “is a love for one’s native land that accords rights to all other nations equal to those claimed for one’s own. Patriotism, in other words, leads to a properly ordered social love.” Nationalism, on the other hand, privileges one’s own country and thus can be a disordered and unhealthy form of idolatry.

    There is a sense in which nationalism privileges one's own country, but it is a perfectly innocuous privileging.  That one's country comes first is as sound an idea as that one's family comes first: each family has the right to prefer its interests over the interests of other families.  If my wife becomes ill, then my obligation is to care for her and expend such financial resources as are necessary to see to her welfare.  If this means reducing my charitable contributions to the local food bank, then so be it. Whatever obligations I have to help others 'ripple out' from myself as center, losing claim to my attention the farther out they go, much like the amplitude of waves caused by a rock's falling into a pond diminishes the farther from the point of impact. Spouse and/or children first, then other family members, then old friends, then new friends, then neighbors, and so on.

    The details are disputable, but not the general principle.  The general principle is that we are justified in looking to our own first. 

    The main obligation of a government is to protect and serve the citizens of the country of which it is the government. It is a further question whether it has obligations to protect and benefit the citizens of other countries.  That is debatable. But if it does, those obligations are trumped by the main obligation just mentioned.  I should think that a great nation such as the USA does well to engage in purely humanitarian efforts such as famine relief.  But such efforts are supererogatory.

    Can nationalism  "be a disordered and unhealthy form of idolatry"?  As opposed to what? An ordinate and healthy form of idolatry?  Idolatry is bad as such.  And I am sure the author would agree, and that if he had been more careful he wouldn't have written such a bad sentence.

    Why should nationalism lead to idolatry?  Does putting one's family first over other human groups lead to the idolatry of one's own family? No.

    "America first!" is a special case of 'Country first!"  But there is nothing idolatrous about the former or the latter.  Every country or nation is justified in preferring its interest over those of other countries. The reference class is countries, not everything.   An enlightened nationalism does not place country over God, thereby making an idol of country.

    Note the order of the words in pro deo et patria.

    The opposite of nationalism is globalism or internationalism whose main inspiration in the last couple of centuries has been godless communism which better earns the epithet 'idolatrous.' 

    Bill Vallicella

Latest Comments

  3. And then there is the Sermon on the Mount. Here is a list of 12 different interpretations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermon_on_the_Mount

  10. Bill, One final complicating observation: The pacifist interpretation of Matt 5:38-42 has been contested in light of Lk 22: 36-38…

Categories

Philosophy Weblogs

Other Websites