Culture

THE FOURTH PHILOSOPHY

putin

The Russian Federation, the Trump Administration, and the coming global multipolar system

Sunday, 13 November 2016

From the perspective of the United States and the West more broadly, Russia has always represented those who would not bow down or atone for their refusal to recognize the Son with the same reverence as the Father. The debate surrounding the filioque has been emblematic of the conflict between the East and West for thousands of years, and up until quite recently, the West has been winning.

According to historian and Roman propagandist Josephus Flavius, the “fourth philosophy” is a term synonymous with the nationalist Jewish revolutionary sect the Sicarii, which was active during the reign of Roman Emperors’ Vespasian Flavius and his son Titus. The Sicarii articulated their conviction that they would not worship the Flavian Emperor as God and refused to submit to Roman rule. And just as Christianity was used as an agitprop against the Sicarii to vilify the Jews and supplant their God with Jesus Christ (Titus Flavius), so too was communism used against Russia in order to attenuate its imperial aspirations and limit its power and influence of Central Asia, i.e., the Heartland.

The fourth philosophy referred to by Josephus Flavius has another ideological connection with Russia. In Aleksandr Dugin’s aptly titled book, “The Fourth Political Theory,” Dugin, a one-time advisor to Putin much like Brzezinski in the West (only not as influential) and thought-leader among some on the Alternative Right, outlined the long term strategic thinking of Russia (more…)

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AMERICAN AGITPROP

american-exceptionalism2

Socio-cultural myth and the problem of American exceptionalism

Thursday, 8 September 2016

Associated colloquially with the Special Snowflake Syndrome, American exceptionalism has permeated the minds of its citizens since The Founding. And for all of America’s imperial ambitions, its root hog, or die attitude will not likely cause it to outlast or outshine the great empires of antiquity.

Those on the Left who have made their bones engaging in polemics of American exceptionalism are engaged in the most profound kind of irony, in that their activities are primarily funded by the same plutocrats that have promulgated the very myth that they seek to dispel, wholly unaware that they are participating in a controlled opposition campaign.

This reality has been well understood since before the American Founding, and was articulated quite explicitly by historian Oswald Spengler in his seminal two-volume work, Decline of West, where he explained the nature of Homo economicus and its spiritual degradation:

“There is no proletarian, not even a Communist, movement that has not operated in the interest of money, in the directions indicated (more…)

SHADOW PUPPETS

allegory of the cave

Science, faith, propaganda, and the epistemological crisis of the postmodern age

Sunday, 20 December 2015

Everywhere we hear of the postmodern age, where a crisis abounds, a crisis of faith in our institutions. Reasons for the development of this crisis of faith have been offered: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, 9/11, or things as culturally mundane as the revelation that Charles Van Doran participated in a fixed game show with the help of a television network. The problem with all of these explanations is that they purport to reveal (more…)

MAIEUTIC AWAKENING

the awakening

An interlocution between teacher and student about what it means to teach social justice within the context of the study of history, government, and ethics.

Friday, 26 June 2015

Student: What is teaching?
Teacher: It is the act of deconstruction and transgression between teacher and student.

Student: What is its purpose?
Teacher: Knowledge that leads to growth, expansion of awareness, and action, i.e., wisdom.

Student: What does teaching social justice mean?
Teacher: Teaching social justice means teaching and speaking to the historical moment, it means exploring the “mechanisms of power which establish inequality, through the systematic analysis of political discourse,” and contextualizing that moment within the arc if history.1 Teaching social justice begins with throwing oneself, and later your students, into an epistemological and existential crisis where everything you think you know about who and what you are needs to be deconstructed then reconstructed from the ground up (more…)

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

school desk

A 12 year retrospective on the state of education by a veteran educator.

Friday, 12 June 2015

Below is an interview conducted by Orenda Review 12 years ago with now retired college professor R.L. Pritchard. He taught History, Political Science, and Law for over 40 years.

OR: In what ways has your perception of education changed since you began teaching?

R.L. Pritchard: One thing that has continued to amaze me during the long course of my teaching career, especially on matters of public interest and public affairs, is how ill-informed most people are. One consequence of that is that people arrive at political positions and opinions based on sort of gut-level responses or remembrances of things without really looking carefully into the facts to find out what truly was the case and how complex things were. Overall, it’s how simplistically people think, including a lot of very well educated people. And I’ve had a lot of very well-educated people in my classes over the years, including older students and people who’ve lived through just about everything I’ve lived through during my lifetime, and yet who know so little of it or retain so little of it. Consequently, because they don’t have the breadth and depth on these things, they tend to (more…)