Are they partly heritable? This seems related to Jonathan Haidt’s work
Category Archives: Philosophy
Liberals Versus Leftists
Can true liberals take the name back? Jonah Goldberg (with sadness) doesn’t think so.
[Update a while later]
More thoughts at Ace of Spades HQ.
Heidegger
Since we were discussing philosophy the other day, Lileks has some thoughts:
The article concerns the anti-Semitism of Heidegger, and how the publication of recent texts the philosopher intended to be the capstone of his output reveals that he didn’t have the easy, lazy cultural anti-Semitism of the era, but really, really thought hard on how the Jews were putting the stick to the decent noble Volk. Not just any kind of Jews, though: worldwide jewry! It’s the richest kind.
..Anything that starts out with “Russia and America are the same” is the product of a mind so high in the clouds it cannot tell the different between red and black ants. But while Russia did indeed have “unrestricted organization of the average man,” an inevitable consequence of the state’s politicization of the entire society, you could say Germany under Hitler had a smattering as well. Or a gerschmatturung, to use Heidegger’s word. Just kidding; he doesn’t. But the article is full of German words intended to set off a Concept, as though expressing a concept in a train-wreck of consonants makes it important. I suppose the point is to be accurate, use the terms the author uses so there can be no misunderstanding. But for my part that would require anything close to comprehension, and I cannot grasp a lot of what Heidegger is talking about, perhaps because there seems to be no point in understanding what he’s saying.
Philosophy isn’t useless, but some philosophers are. Or worse than.
Physicists And Philosophy
Hey, guys, please stop saying dumb things about it.
Liberalism
It may be a futile battle, but I’ll certainly keep tilting at the windmill. The Left is not liberal.
Are Conservatives Dumber Than “Liberals”
It turns out that classical liberals (i.e., libertarians) are smarter than both.
Environmentalists
Thoughts on their inhumanity.
On Gun Control
How I learned to stop worrying and love the AR-15:
Brutally put, it makes little philosophical sense for the elected representatives of a government that is subordinate to the people to be able to disarm those people. As an enlightened state may by no means act as the arbiter of its critics’ words, it may not remove from the people the basic rights that are recognized in the very document to which it owes its existence. “Shall not be infringed” and “shall make no law” are clear enough even for the postmodern age. To ask, “Why do you need an AR-15?” is to invert the relationship. A better question: “Why don’t you want me to have one?” And far from being the preserve of two-bit reactionaries, this, I discovered to my consternation, is a deeply — nay, radically — liberal principle, and one of the most beautiful ideas in the history of beautiful ideas. It changed my politics forever.
It is not, and has never been, about hunting.
[Update a few minutes later]
And then there’s this:
These ideas had a profound effect on me, ushering in the startling realization that, far from merely being a larger England, the United States had become something quite different: an incubator of lost or diluted British freedoms. As the Liberty Bell was originally cast in England but rang out in America, so those guarantees of the “rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural-born subjects” have found their truest expression across the Atlantic. “That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy,” wrote George Orwell in 1941. “It is our job to see that it stays there.” In Britain and beyond, that rifle has long been taken away. England’s bell has fallen silent. Americans would do well to ensure that the crack in theirs grows no larger.
Yes.
Rousseau Was Wrong
That’s an evergreen post title, but the science is settled:
Human facial structure evolved to tolerate punches to the head, according to new research that suggests our ancestors spent a lot of time fighting.
So they weren’t corrupted by civilization. Huh.
[Update early afternoon]
On the other hand, maybe not.
But even without this theory, there’s ample evidence that prehistoric humans weren’t gentle pacifists.