Philosophy

THE MASCULINE ETHOS

Conflicting visions of masculinity in the postmodern era

Monday, 5 September 2022

Masculinity is both a noun and a verb, defined as much by one’s physical characteristics as one’s actions in society. But how precisely is it to be defined biologically and culturally? The former has become a decidedly more slippery project than it once was, now that men, in a stunning rejection of the most fundamental apophatic truth of humanity on earth, can give birth. And the latter, the focus of this essay, seems to suggest two separate and distinct propositions: the first, constrained, and the second, unconstrained.

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STATES OF EMERGENCY

black swan

The phenomenology of crisis in America

Monday, 6 April 2020

We are at war. There is an enemy, soldiers, heroes, and victims. And because we are at war, we will be subject to an unceasing propaganda effort to shape our thinking about what is happening, or should happen, and what we can do about it. During times of war and catastrophe, we must as the story goes, sacrifice some liberty for security. Power coalesces in the face of catastrophe, where large scale coordination is required to address unforeseen events, and we are told that this was an unforeseen event. This is part of what it means to live in a representative democracy, where the rule of law prevails above all else. The rule of law in America is a self-licking ice cream. Whenever new laws brought about by states of emergency are enacted, a “new normal” begins to congeal in the minds of Americans, and these new laws become part of the landscape of American life, part of a rules-based society – the rule of law ultimately prevails, regardless of the scope of its power. This means that in America, provided we are able to maintain the appearance of legitimacy in our plebiscites, the outcome of voting has the imprimatur of the people and the patina of political authority. We all have a role to play in this “live exercise”.

The most significant changes in society happen in short convulsions, where a dangerous enemy is clearly defined. This fact was well understood long ago, and was articulated with great clarity in the minutes of the Carnegie Foundation’s first meetings in the early 1900s, which were uncovered by the United States House Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations (aka, the Reece Committee), when they were engaged in a grand effort to shape the future of America. Norman Dodd, the head researcher of the Reece Committee recalls: (more…)

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…)

ON MASTERY – PART II

concentration

The nature of concentration and focus in the development of mastery

Monday, 10 October 2016

For some scientists, the nature of perception is culturally mediated, especially when comparing West and the East. Much of the research seems to indicate that Eastern culture is more naturally inclined to be “in concentration,” while Western culture employs the perceptual habit of being “in focus.” Concentration and focus represent the two primary perceptual paradigms in the development of mastery. The subject-object relations of concentration and focus are fundamentally different, where the former is best understood as a gathering of one’s attention, and the latter a selecting of one’s attention. Both are necessary skills that one must develop in the process of continuous, incremental improvement – or mastery. These are the two primary methods of information processing available to us when communicating with someone or learning a new skill. Concentration is governed by Yin energy, while focus is governed by Yang energy. Both are expressions of intent, with concentration by its very nature being an internal process, while focus is an external process. Taking a closer look at these two processes, (more…)

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…)