{"id":1501,"date":"2023-04-19T19:47:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T19:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2023\/04\/19\/the-only-way-out-is-through\/"},"modified":"2023-04-19T19:47:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T19:47:55","slug":"the-only-way-out-is-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2023\/04\/19\/the-only-way-out-is-through\/","title":{"rendered":"The Only Way Out is Through"},"content":{"rendered":"

The urge to retreat is tempting, but the only way out is through. To float above the fray in the manner of a Rod Dreher is not the way; the only way out is through.<\/span><\/p>\n

Minervic flights and the consolations of philosophy cannot be enjoyed when the barbarians are at the gates of one's stoa. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now you know why I mix the abstruse and theoretical with the political and practical.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conservatives, especially those of them given to contemplative pursuits, need to make their peace with activism in order to secure and defend the spaces of their quietism.  And this with blood and iron if need be. <\/span><\/p>\n

The owl of Minerva is a tough old bird, but no phoenix capable of rising from its ashes.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the world and its hopelessness are too much with us, one can and must beat a retreat into the private life and the pleasures and pursuits thereof:  body culture, mind culture, hobbies, family life, the various escapes (which are not necessarily escapes from reality) into chess, fiction, prayer, meditation, history, pure mathematics and science, one's own biography and the pleasant particulars of one's past, music, gardening, homemaking . . . . But all this by way of recuperation for the battle.<\/span><\/p>\n

I pity the poor activist for whom the real is exhausted by the political.  But I detest these totalitarians as well since they seek to elide the boundary between the private and the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

So we need to battle the bastards in the very sphere they think exhausts the real.  But it is and must be a part-time fight, lest we become like them.  Most of life for us conservatives must be given over to the enjoyment and appreciation, in private, of the apolitical:  nature, for example, and nature's God.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only way out is through<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The urge to retreat is tempting, but the only way out is through. To float above the fray in the manner of a Rod Dreher is not the way; the only way out is through. Minervic flights and the consolations of philosophy cannot be enjoyed when the barbarians are at the gates of one's stoa.  Now … Continue reading “The Only Way Out is Through”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[306,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism-and-quietism","category-political-tactics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}