News media characteristically brings us one story after another about the kinds of things humans to do each other which are broadly characterized as “evil”. And these stories tend to generate accusations of “evil-doers” which are then dispatched with the… Read More ›
politics
Thoughlets. XLIV.
Do you ever wonder what future generations will look like? Look in a mirror. You are the future generations of those who lived before you. And do you ever wonder what future future generations will think of you and your… Read More ›
Hume on Persuasion.
In On War Carl Von Clausewitz says war is a continuation of politics by other means. Or cf. Foucault, who suggests this definition might be the inverted: politics is a continuation of war by other means. My interest is in the ‘other… Read More ›
Saturday Morning Pam-toons. And from this, an entire political theory.
Thomas Hobbes, A.P. Martinich and Brian Battiste, Eds, Leviathan, Broadview, 2011.Part I, Chapter XIII, 3. (p 122)
R.e.s.p.e.c.t. What does it mean and why should I care?
In my youth, my dad often gave me the following advice. Respect your elders, but don’t take any shit. I took Dad to mean that there is a mutual component to respect, that my respecting my elders didn’t give them… Read More ›
Thoughtlets. xxviii.
It’s no small annoyance whenever an interlocutor stops to evaluate whether what I have just said falls on the political left or the right. In so doing she’s pegging me to a side. And once pegged, in her mind, whether… Read More ›
Thoughtlets .xxv.
If you like something a political speaker has said or the way she’s said it, ask yourself who her target audience is and whether you are a member. If so, remember the politician is soliciting your vote. It would not… Read More ›
Thoughtlets .xviii.
Words such as ‘matters’, ‘dangerous’, and even ‘good’, require an indexical, by which is meant these words require a to or a for. Once you flesh in the indexical you open questions such as why, how, and so what? Some… Read More ›
Thoughtlets .viii.
Stand in one room while the television is on in the other. Now see if you can distinguish the voices of Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) and Tucker Carlson (Fox News). I can’t. Notice that it’s not just their voices that are… Read More ›
