Historians Need Not Apply

At the intersection of academia and wokery lies academentia. 

I have one quibble with Hinderaker. He writes,

But the phenomenon at work here–a huge cadre of well-educated people who think they are entitled to make good money, be treated with deference, and play a significant role in public life, but who in fact are not very employable and whose expectations are doomed to be frustrated–explains a lot about the demented quality of our current culture.

The phrase "well-educated people" is surely out of place. This "huge cadre" is not well-educated by any reasonable, historically-based standard.  But you've heard this sort of thing from me before, for example, here. Tony Flood offers some excellent commentary.

ChatGPT on Me

William F. Vallicella is a contemporary philosopher known for his work in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of language. He has written extensively on topics such as existence, identity, time, free will, and the nature of truth. Vallicella is particularly noted for his clear and rigorous analytical style, and he often engages with both classical and contemporary philosophical positions in his writings. He has contributed to numerous academic journals and has authored several books on these subjects.

Not bad! "Several books' is inaccurate. If you count my dissertation I have authored only two books.  Two more are in the works. How might I justify my lack of productivity? 

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 80:

Der Gruss der Philosophen unter einander sollte sein: "Lass Dir Zeit!"
This is how philosophers should greet each other: "Take your time!"

A similar thought is to be found in Franz Brentano, though I have forgotten where he says this:

Wer eilt, bewegt sich nicht auf dem Boden der Wissenschaft.
One who hurries is not proceeding on a scientific basis.

But now I'd better get moving. The clock is running, the time control is sudden death, and the Grim Reaper is my vis-à-vis, his scythe all aglisten and at the ready.

Antonius Block, depicted below and played by Max von Sydow in Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal (1957), resembles Ludwig Wittgenstein.

In Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal, actor Max von Sydow, right, portrays Antonius Block, a knight who challenges Death to a chess match.

A Gov’t Subsidy for Seniors’ USCF Dues

Ed Yetman reports:

I don’t know if this is a new high or a new low, but it is something I’ve never seen before. Somehow, USCF has managed to find a way to get the U.S. government to pay membership fees for senior members. That’s right, Uncle Sam wants you to play chess so bad, he’s willing to pay for it. Here are the details:

Uncle Sam pays…of course.

Normally, I would applaud USCF finding such a strange niche and using it to promote USCF membership. But I’m having qualms.

My first concern is this: whenever the government subsidizes something, the subsidy distorts the free-market value. The sky-high cost of college tuition is such an example. USCF membership for seniors will go up, and that will lead, inevitably, to corruption. Also, you subsidize something, you get more of it: how many of these new USCF senior members will never play in a tournament? They will have full voting rights; I’m chary about letting people vote for things they have no stake in at all. Do we want USCF elections to be decided by people who could not care less about tournament chess? Oh wait—we already have that problem.

My second concern is the inescapable mission-creep of such things. How long before we have subsidies for other classes of players, like women and children? What then?

The leadership of USCF is already pretty far away from the traditional tournament player. This will only make it worse.

You're spot on, Ed.

Trump and the ‘Losertarians’

The Libertarian Party is for losers. If you are a conservative who votes Libertarian, you are behaving foolishly. You say you stand on 'principles'? Principles are great. And some of the Libertarian ones are salutary. But principles without power are just paper.  Politics is a practical game. Wise up and get with the program. Don't throw away your vote on unelectables. If it comes down to Trump versus Biden, you must vote for Trump.  Nikki Haley gets it. To paraphrase her recent  endorsement: Trump is  not perfect, but Biden is a catastrophe.

You have heard me say many times that politics is a practical game. I don't mean that it is unserious. Some games are serious; chess is one, life is another.* Life is as serious as cancer, and the wrong people in power can put a serious dent in your living of your life.  You know who these are at the present time.

Politics is not about perfect versus  imperfect, but about better versus worse in the concrete circumstances in which we find ourselves.  That's what I mean when I say that politics is practical. I'm a theoretician myself, and unlikely to do much in the political sphere beyond vote and exercise my free speech rights.  But you must understand the political if you are to have any chance of ameliorative action within the political sphere.  Ameliorative praxis presupposes true theory. Libertarians, standing on 'principle,' have as little understanding of the nature of the political as do integralists. (See my Substack entries on integralism, here and here.) Their respective candidates are unelectable.   

Practically, you are a fool if you let the best become the enemy of the good by supporting candidates the probability of whose election is near zero.  Don't waste your time with third parties, which are nothing more than discussion societies in political drag.

Old Karl said that whereas the philosophers have variously interpreted the world, the point is to change it. He got it backwards. Job One is to understand the world; only then will you have any chance of changing it for the better. I hope you all agree that the commies changed things all right, but for the worse. Pace Barack Hussein Obama, progress is not change; progress is change for the better.  And to repeat myself, in the realm of praxis the realizable better is to be preferred over the unattainable best.

Politico reports here on foolish 'losertarian' opposition to Trump.  

“The vast majority of Libertarian Party members are not happy with this invitation,” said Bill Redpath, a 40-year veteran of the Libertarian Party and a former national party chair who’s helped organize their presidential ballot access for decades. “There are some people who call Trump the most Libertarian president of our lifetimes. That’s utterly ridiculous.”

What is Redpath's point? That Reagan was more libertarian than Trump? Maybe so. But Reagan is long gone. What is practically relevant is that Trump is more libertarian than any other electable candidate at present.   Who will stand up for 2A? Joey B.? RFK Jr.? Gavin Newsom?  2A is the lead that backs up the paper of the other ten. Catch my drift?

Do libertarians really value liberty? Or do they just like to talk?  In his address at the Libertarian National Convention, Trump said that if the libertarians are not happy with their usual 3% of the vote, they should nominate or at least vote for him. They nominated some unknown by the name of Chase something.  Oh yes, Chase Oliver. I'm already having trouble remembering a name I first heard two days ago.

______________

*Bobby Fisher famously said, "Chess is life." But we needn't go that far!

UPDATE (5/29) Walter E. Block: Libertarians should vote for Trump. https://www.wsj.com/articles/libertarians-should-vote-for-trump-4ef84994?mod=opinion_lead_pos8 But of course! Block has his head screwed on Right even if he is a libertarian.

If we pull the lever for Mr. Trump in these swing states, we may get a slightly more libertarian president and help free Mr. Ulbricht. If we vote Libertarian everywhere else, we make a statement and help preserve our ballot access.

Some Libertarians find Mr. Trump unacceptable on grounds of principle. True, he is no libertarian, but Mr. Biden—the wokester, the socialist, the interventionist—is much further from us on the political-economic spectrum than Mr. Trump.

Others are put off by Mr. Trump’s obnoxious behavior. He engages in name-calling. He puts ketchup on filet mignon.

Mr. Trump grew up in Queens. I’m roughly his contemporary and come from Brooklyn. I assure you that everyone in New York City is personally unbearable (except Staten Islanders). It is a geographical-genetic disposition. Ignore it. This act of his is mostly tongue-in-cheek. New Yorkers actually have contests to see who is the most insufferable. Prizes are given out.

Dylan Turns 83

Scott Johnson of Powerline offers a couple of thoughtful retrospective pieces.

Not Dark Yet

Chimes of Freedom

Can one get tired of Dylan? That would be like getting tired of America. It would be like getting to the point where no passage in Kerouac brings a tingle to the spine or a tear to the eye, to the point where the earthly road ends and forever young must give way to knocking on heaven's door.

The scrawny Jewish kid from Hibbing Minnesota, son of an appliance salesman, was an unlikely bard, but bard he became. He's been at it a long, long time, and his body of work is as vast and as variegated as America herself. We old fans from way back who were with him from the beginning are still finding gems unheard as we ourselves enter the twilight where it's not dark yet, but getting there. But it is a beautiful fade-out from a world that cannot last.

Thanks, Bob, it wouldn't have been the '60s without you. 

A Use for Bullet Chess

Bullet is faster than Blitz. I've been playing over at Lichess: two-minutes with a one second increment, sudden death. I die a lot, but like Phoenix rise from my ashes to play again. The fastest bullet games are one minute per side, no increment.

What's the use of it?  I count six uses.

1) It wakes me up. I out-monk the monks when it comes to early arisal from the bed of sloth. This morning I got up at 12:20 AM. (Usually I arise at 1:30) So by 4:30 I needed a second cup of java, but even that didn't turn the trick. So I logged on to Lichess and blasted out two bullet games, winning one, losing the other. And now I'm bangin' on all eight. 

2) It gets me over a temporary writing hurdle. I hit a sag. Inspiration fails. How do  I push this line of thought further? Stymied, I fire up the chess engine, bang out some games, and Seldom Seen Slim is back in the saddle, inspiration restored. I find my way forward.

3) It is good mental exercise.  Exercise yourself every which way every day: mentally, physically, spiritually, morally. Mens sana in corpore sano, et cetera.

4) It is a challenge. The strenuous life is best by test. 

5) It's fun. A little fun never hurt anybody.

6) It distracts me from what the filthy Dems and their media enablers are doing to the country. Chess is an oasis of sanity in an insane world. To swap out the metaphor, chess is the perfect drug, especially when enhanced by consumption of those less-than-perfect drugs, caffeine and nicotine. 

Will a Perfect Storm Soon be upon us?

Anthony Flood thinks so.  Here is how his piece begins:

The dictionary defines a perfect storm as an “unusual combination of events or things that produce an unusually bad or powerful result.” The latter, as I see it, is life as we’ve become accustomed to enjoying it.

Four years ago, I stated my grounds . . . . 

And now Flood adds to the list:

My list didn’t give sufficient attention to the open southern border of the United States, which is being invaded daily in great numbers, or the explosion of urban crime.

I was not thinking of the resurrection of Nazi-level, genocidalist  antisemitism within the walls of the institutions tasked with handing on civilization’s treasures.

I inexcusably paid no attention at all to the moral depravity that acquiesces in (if not celebrates) infanticide and the gender confusion that spits on the revelation of God (Genesis 1:27, 5:2; Matthew 19:4-6) Whom the “perfect stormtroopers” hate because they love death (Proverbs 8:36). Structural instabilities have followed the culture of death as the night the day. (I’ll let others decide if the charge of post hoc, ergo propter hoc is relevant.)

The world-historical figure who may win the general election in 168 days (to which victory I will contribute) may slow the rate of decline and postpone some of its consequences, but he can’t reverse it.

On November 6, 2024, no perfect stormtrooper will say, “Well, you beat us fair and square! Better luck next time!” No, they’re prepared to “accept” such an electoral result the way the PLO famously “accepted” the state of Israel, that is, an enemy to be destroyed and whose people are to be exterminated. Their plans to destroy Western Civ in general and its American outpost in particular will be pursued.

Like Napoleon, Trump may reshape the trajectory of a post-revolutionary era and bevel a few of its sharp edges. In the offing, however, I see no counterrevolution worthy of the name. As I wrote in the cited post:

Call me a secular pessimist (although I’m an eschatological optimist), but I see no liberation in this dispensation, libertarian or otherwise, from those scourges. God will stop the wicked in their tracks:

So shall they [God’s enemies] fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him (Isaiah 59:19).

He’ll lift it. God’s promised government is a future intervention that God, not man, will inaugurate; its blessings will be manifest to all, and delivered directly. “Thy Kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10).

Think you can cheer me up in the short run? Have at it.