Maverick Philosopher

Welcome to Maverick Philosopher

Online since May 2004. I publish both here and at Substack. I began posting at Substack in early 2021 under the rubric "Philosophy in Progress." The Substack entries are intended to assist educated non-philosophers in clarifying their thinking about matters of moment.  My PhilPeople page links to my Substack articles and my weblog Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical, and provides a list of my professional publications. 

Two-line biography:  I taught philosophy at various universities in the USA and abroad. At the relatively young age of 41 I resigned from  a tenured position to live the eremitic life of the independent philosopher in the Sonoran desert. Contact information on the About page on the right sidebar.

Interests: Everything. Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto. (Terentius) "I am a man: I consider nothing human foreign to me." 

Comment Policy: This site is not a discussion board.  Comments must address directly what the author says or what the commenters say.  Other comments will not be allowed to appear. 

My politics?  From Democrat to Dissident

Much more below the fold. Best wishes to all men and women of good will who love truth, seek it, and strive to incorporate it in their lives.

A Devastating Case against the Depredatory Dems

Unanswerable.

Trump's Magnificent MAHA Team

MAHA goes back a long way. Some of us are old enough to remember John F. Kennedy's stirring call to national fitness. It made a difference in our lives. If only Uncle Jack could see his nephew Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. teamed up with four distinguished medical doctors, Jay Bhattacharya, Marty Makary, Vinay Prasad, and Mehmet Oz.  

True (conservative) diversity and true (conservative) inclusion!  And no 'equity' in sight. Merit, excellence, achievement.  

Three of the doctors mentioned, health heretics in the dismal, dark, and demented days of Joey B's admin, are now health czars.

You may enjoy watching the forcible removal of some leftist reprobates who attempted to disrupt an RFK, Jr. hearing. A little schadenfreude never hurt anybody.

Play to Win . . .

. . . but with complete detachment from the outcome.  So I tell myself, while playing chess, for example, but not only in such competitions, but in all the affairs of life. Be like the lotus leaf that floats on the water but does not become wet! (Bhagavad Gita 5:10) But does the self-admonition refer to an achievable ideal? Is it psychologically possible for a human being freely to strive to accomplish some end he values but remain completely indifferent as to whether or not he achieves his end?

If it is not psychologically possible, then it cannot be an ideal let alone a moral obligation. Ought implies can, and what I ought to do I am morally obliged to do.  Surely I am not morally obliged to remain wholly indifferent to whether I achieve what I set out to achieve in all the pursuits of life if such detachment is psychologically impossible. 

What's more, such detachment is not even an ideal if my generalized 'ought' implies 'can' principle holds water.

Peikoff on the Supernatural

Top o' the Stack.

Disciple on the left, master on the right.

Marital Vows

The more seriously you take them, the more careful you will be in the selection of a spouse.

Church Patriotism

Simone Weil, somewhere in Gravity and Grace, speaks of "church patriotism."  It's comparable to the knee-jerk patriotism of the "my country right or wrong" sort.  Both are forms of idolatry. Ecclesiolatry on the one hand, statolatry on the other. (That's not my coinage; bang on the link.)

The Decivilizing of America

Another outstanding article by VDH.  If you read this blog you will most likely agree with it. But then why do I link to it?  To supply you with argumentative ammo.  In a war you cannot have too much ammo.

When to Stop Talking

Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night, #295:

When a man perceives that the person he is talking to simply cannot see the things about which he is talking, then he should stop talking.

Boethius and the Second Death of Oblivion

Substack latest

Grok on Vallicella on Adorno

I put the following question to Grok: What does Bill Vallicella say in critique of the work of Theodor W. Adorno? Here is the answer it spit out in a few seconds, and though it did not dig up everything I have written about Adorno online,  it ain't bad.  It's a brave new world, kiddies. Future shock is upon us. Fasten your seat belts.  

William F. Vallicella, in his Substack post "Contra Adorno: A Preliminary Plea for Omphaloscopy" (published February 27, 2021), offers a critique of Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophical approach, focusing specifically on Adorno’s views on subjective reflection, contemplation, and the relationship between subject and object as presented in Adorno’s *Philosophische Terminologie* (lectures from 1962–63). Below is a summary of Vallicella’s key points of critique, grounded in the provided source:

1. **Critique of Adorno’s Rejection of Contemplation (Versenkung)**:
- Vallicella highlights Adorno’s dismissive attitude toward *Versenkung* (meditative contemplation or "navel-gazing"), which Adorno associates with an illusory, tautological, and contentless form of subjective reflection. Adorno argues that such inward focus leads to an "abstract inner emptiness" and fails to engage with external reality, producing statements like "I am I" or Heidegger’s "Being is Itself." Vallicella finds this dismissal problematic, suggesting it unfairly caricatures meditative practices and overlooks their potential for genuine insight. He defends contemplation by referencing historical practices, such as those attributed to St. Symeon the New Theologian, which involve focused introspection that Adorno might have reductively labeled as navel-gazing.[](https://williamfvallicella.substack.com/p/contra-adorno-a-preliminary-plea)

2. **Subject-Object Mediation and Hegelian Influence**:
- Vallicella critiques Adorno’s Hegelian framework, particularly the idea that the subject has no content except through its relation to external objects, and that subject and object mediate each other. Adorno posits that a subject sunk into itself is "contentless," and true depth arises only when the subject "externalizes itself" and engages with "otherness." Vallicella challenges this view, arguing that it risks reducing the subject to a mere function of its relations, a position he sees as rooted in Hegelian monism. He questions how entities can be constituted solely by their relations, noting that relations presuppose the existence of relata with some intrinsic being. This, Vallicella argues, reveals a flaw in Adorno’s (and Hegel’s) relational ontology, which he sees as anti-personalistic and overly abstract.[](https://williamfvallicella.substack.com/p/contra-adorno-a-preliminary-plea)

3. **Totalitarian Denial of Transcendence**:
- Vallicella’s most pointed critique is that Adorno’s philosophy is "totalitarian" in its denial of transcendence. He interprets Adorno’s thought as aligning with Hegel’s dictum "Das Wahre ist das Ganze" (the true is the whole), where everything is mediated by the social whole, and nothing possesses substantial being independently. Vallicella argues this view eliminates any possibility of transcendence or individual autonomy, trapping the subject within a monistic system where all meaning derives from social relations. He sees this as a denial of personal identity and spiritual depth, contrasting it with philosophies that affirm individual or metaphysical transcendence.[](https://williamfvallicella.substack.com/p/contra-adorno-a-preliminary-plea)

4. **Philosophical Implications**:
- Vallicella suggests that Adorno’s rejection of subjective depth and transcendence reflects a broader materialist and collectivist bias, influenced by Marxism and Hegelian dialectics, which prioritizes the social whole over individual or metaphysical realities. He argues that this approach undermines the possibility of authentic philosophical inquiry into the self or ultimate truth, reducing philosophy to a critique of social structures. Vallicella’s defense of "omphaloscopy" (navel-gazing) is a provocative counterpoint, advocating for the value of introspective practices that Adorno dismisses.[](https://williamfvallicella.substack.com/p/contra-adorno-a-preliminary-plea)

### Context and Limitations
Vallicella’s critique is narrowly focused on Adorno’s treatment of contemplation and subjectivity in *Philosophische Terminologie*, rather than engaging with Adorno’s broader oeuvre, such as his work on the culture industry, negative dialectics, or aesthetics. The critique is also shaped by Vallicella’s own philosophical commitments, which lean toward defending individual transcendence and contemplative practices, contrasting with Adorno’s critical theory and its emphasis on social critique. The source does not indicate whether Vallicella addresses Adorno’s specific works like *Dialectic of Enlightenment* or *Minima Moralia*, so the critique may not fully capture Adorno’s complex views on modernity, capitalism, or art.

### Conclusion
William F. Vallicella critiques Theodor W. Adorno for rejecting contemplative introspection as illusory and for adopting a Hegelian framework that denies transcendence and reduces the subject to its social relations. He sees Adorno’s philosophy as totalitarian, monistic, and dismissive of individual depth, arguing that it overlooks the value of subjective reflection and relational autonomy. This critique, while sharp, is limited to a specific aspect of Adorno’s thought and reflects Vallicella’s defense of contemplative and transcendent perspectives. For a deeper understanding, readers may consult Vallicella’s Substack post directly or explore Adorno’s primary texts to assess the fairness of these criticisms.[](https://williamfvallicella.substack.com/p/contra-adorno-a-preliminary-plea)

If you’d like me to search for additional sources or analyze specific works by Adorno or Vallicella in more detail, let me know!

'Old Hat'

It's an expression I have often used.

To say of something that it is old hat is to say that it is old, or well-known, or passé.

Wondering about the origin of this curious phrase, I turned to Robert Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 2nd ed. (2004), p. 529. What I found there surprised me:

Today old hat means out of date or not new, and it has meant this for at least a century. But back as early as 1754 it was "used by the vulgar in no very honorable sense," as Fielding put it. It then meant, in Grose's punning definition from his 1785 Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: "a woman's privities: because frequently felt."

This is no doubt interesting, but how does it explain the origin of the the adjectival phrase 'old hat'? That 'old hat' was once used as a noun by a certain class of people to refer to "a woman's privities" does nothing to show the origin of 'old hat' as currently and adjectivally used.

Homo Faber, Homo Mendax

Man the maker is a damned liar. He is a fabricator in both senses of the term. A little god and a little devil.  Neither the Father of all nor the Father of lies, he is a chip off the old blocks.

This observation has a Manichean flavor. But if there are not two co-eternal and co-equal principles butting heads, then we get the problem of how the Good Itself can sire evil which is rather lamely viewed as a mere privatio boni.

That it is a dubious doctrine I will argue later, but for now I will simply note that the evil-as-privation doctrine does seem to accommodate an intuition that many of us have, namely, that good and evil, though opposed, are not mutually independent.

Thus in one clear sense good and evil are polar opposites: what is good is not evil and what is evil is not good. And yet one hesitates to say that they are on an ontological par, that they are equally real. They are not opposed as two positivities. The evil of ignorance, for example, is not something positive in its own right: the evil of ignorance consists in its being an absence of something good, knowledge. Good is an ontological prius; evil has a merely derivative status as an absence of good.

Or so it seems. Until we think harder. More later. Old Sol is threatening to rise once again. The heat is back. The mountain bike beckons. The sun also rises, and so do I from the bench of blog to greet the day.

Rosie O'Donnell

The corpulent cow's self-deportation has put many a mile between her and the object of her hatred, and many a smile upon conservative faces. Curiously, her spatial distance from the Orange Man seems only to have exacerbated her animosity. Given the quality of the Dem field, she should be considered for 2028.

Ronald Radosh on David Horowitz: A Critical Appreciation

On very rare occasions, something surfaces at The Bulwark worth reading.

Radosh, who is well worth reading, gives his take on Horowitz's flipping of his ideological script, and takes him to task for his late extremism. But how is this judgment by Radosh not itself extreme:

What David is being celebrated for is the opposite of the introspective and empathetic writer, a thoughtful and moderate conservative, evident in his personal books. And his supporters give him credit for helping to create the most repulsive and nasty of the Trump entourage, Stephen Miller, who of course, added his own tribute to David. Another right-wing extremist protégé, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, wrote to single out David’s responsibility for Miller’s career in these words . . . .

What hatreds politics sires! I am reminded of something I wrote in From Democrat to Dissident:

We were friends for a time, but friendship is fragile among those for whom ideas matter. Unlike the ordinary nonintellectual person, the intellectual lives for and sometimes from ideas. They are his oxygen and sometimes his bread and butter. He takes them very seriously indeed and with them differences in ideas. So the tendency is for one intellectual to view another whose ideas differ as not merely holding incorrect views but as being morally defective in so doing. Why? Because ideas matter to the intellectual. They matter in the way doctrines and dogmas mattered to old-time religionists. If one’s eternal happiness is at stake, it matters infinitely whether one “gets it right” doctrinally. If there is no salvation outside the church, you had better belong to the right church. It matters so much that one may feel entirely justified in forcing the heterodox to recant “for their own good.”

Addendum (5/9)

Here is Stephen Miller in action. Trenchant, but wholly on target, and the reprobates who are the recipients of the trenchancy richly deserve it. Miller is neither repulsive nor nasty by any sane measure.  Perhaps someone should ask Radosh which side he is on these days.

Would that the extremity of the political polarization of the present could be avoided, including the polarization over polarization itself, its nature, causes, effects, and who is responsible for it. I say they are responsible for it.   Our positions are moderate; theirs are extreme. 

For example, James Carville, the "ragin' Cajun," is poles apart from the sane and reasonable Victor Davis Hanson.  Bang on the links and see for yourself.  But 'see' is not the right word inasmuch as leftists are blind and can't see 'jack.' How explain such blindness, such intransigence, such praeter-natural feculence of brain, perversity of will, foulness of heart?

I find it endlessly fascinating. Polarization, I mean. Why this depth of disagreement? But it's all grist for the mill, blog-fodder for the Bill.

For another example, compare Newt Gingrich's sanity to its lack in one  who is "terrified" at Trump's judicial picks.

Addendum (5/10): polarization update 

TDS at TNR:

Living under a far-right authoritarian regime that is gutting every American institution that keeps people safe, alive, and connected to a thriving civilization, we have to keep asking ourselves how we got here—and how we can get out. And the most important factor in Donald Trump’s win was that Kamala Harris lost.

Trump has run for president three times and Harris is the only person to have lost the popular vote to him. In 2024, he had no special magic; if anything, he was marred as a felon and a failed coup leader. A major part of the problem was Harris, who embodies the change-nothing politics of Hillary Clinton without the latter’s political savvy; and the cautiousness of Joe Biden without his populist instincts.

Heaven and Hell: the Looming of the Last Things at the End of the Trail

A friend of mine, nearing the end of the trail, afflicted in body and soul, writes:

 

A question, my friend. Can you imagine someone on his deathbed saying, "Well I never really believed I'd meet Jesus, but the possible reward (eternal salvation) was so great that I was persuaded to be a believer so long as the probability of salvation was not effectively zero. I can't say I really believe in Jesus, but the possible rewards of believing are so great I had to buy the ticket." A decision-theoretic argument for belief that some think can made stronger by also postulating Hell (eternal damnation). If I don't believe, I risk Hell, even if I think the probability of that is very small.

 

Well, the Hell branch of the argument has the problem that eternal damnation is incompatible with a just and benevolent deity. Way too many people are sent to Hell for merely not believing (especially children). So what about Heaven? Can a just and benevolent God reward me with eternal happiness just for believing in (and maybe worshipping) him? Just as the threatened punishment seems totally disproportionate, so the promised reward seems "too good to be true" (in other words, a scam).

 

Not necessarily MY view of Heaven, but one that I hear often.

 

As for hell, I tend to agree with my friend.

 

Suppose God exists and there is an afterlife the quality of which depends on how one behaves here below.  Suppose that the justice which is largely absent here will be meted out there.  And suppose we take as a moral axiom that the punishment must fit the crime.  The question then arises: what crime or series of crimes by any human being could merit everlasting post-mortem punishment?  I would say that no crime or series of crimes would merit such punishment.  Thus it is offensive to my moral sense that a just God would punish everlastingly a human evildoer. 

 

Two qualifications. (1) It is reasonably presumed to be  otherwise with angelic evildoers such as Lucifer, so let's leave them out of the discussion.   (2) It is also reasonably presumed to be otherwise if a human, whether evildoer or not, wanted to maintain himself in a state of rebellion against God, after coming face-to-face with God, in which case my moral sense would have no problem with God's granting the rebel his wish and maintaining him in a state of everlasting exclusion from the divine light and succor.  Candidate rebels: Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Josef Stalin.

Suppose that, after death, Stalin sees the errors of his ways and desires to come into right relation with God.  He must still be punished for his horrendous crimes. Surely justice demands that much.  What I fail to grasp, however, is how justice could demand that Stalin be punished everlastingly or eternally (if you care to distinguish eternity from everlastingness) for a finite series of finite crimes. 

Thomas Aquinas disagrees:

The magnitude of the punishment matches the magnitude of the sin. Now a sin that is against God is infinite; the higher the person against whom it is committed, the graver the sin—it is more criminal to strike a head of state than a private citizen—and God is of infinite greatness. Therefore an infinite punishment is deserved for a sin committed against Him. (Summa Theologica, Ia2ae. 87, 4.)

Some years back, my friend floated the suggestion that we are in hell right now. This can't be right, for reasons I won't go into. But it is reasonably held that we are right now in purgatory. The case is made brilliantly and with vast erudition by Geddes MacGregor in Reincarnation in Christianity (Quest Books, 1978,  see in particular, ch. 10. "Reincarnation as Purgatory.")

As for heaven, my friend asks,

Can a just and benevolent God reward me with eternal happiness just for believing in . . . him? Just as the threatened punishment seems totally disproportionate, so the promised reward seems "too good to be true" . . . .

The question is essentially this:  If justice rules out everlasting, 'infinite,' punishment for finite crimes committed by miserably limited humans, does it also rule out everlasting reward for finite good deeds? If the threatened punishment is totally disproportionate, is the promised reward also totally disproportionate?

To sharpen it a bit further, let's translate the interrogative into a declarative:  If no everlasting punishment is justified, then no everlasting reward is either.  If that is the claim, then I would respond by saying that the Beatific Vision is not a reward  for good things we do here below, but the state intended for us all along.  It is something like a birthright or an inheritance.  One doesn't earn one's inheritance; it is a gift, not a reward.   But one can lose it.  Similarly with the Beatific Vision.  One cannot earn it, and one does not deserve it.  But one can lose it.

It is also worth noting that 'totally disproportionate' and 'too good to be true' differ in sense.  The visio beata is admittedly totally disproportionate as a reward  for the good things that we wretched mortals do, but that is not to say that it is too good to be true.  If it is true that our ultimate felicity is participation in the divine life, and true that this participation is open to us, as a  real possibility and a divine gift, then that is the way things are. How could it be too good to be true?  Whatever good thing exists, precisely because it exists ,cannot be too good to exist.

Concluding Existential-Practical  Postscript

What I really want to say to my friend is that, while these philosophical and theological problems are genuine and important, they cannot be resolved on the theoretical plane.  In the end, after canvassing all the problems and all the arguments for and against, one simply has to decide what one will believe and how one will live. In the end, the will comes into it.  The will must come into it, since nothing in this area can be proven, strictly speaking. The 'presuppers' are out to lunch, to mention one bunch of those who fabricate a fake certainty for themselves to assuage their overwhelming doxastic security needs. And the same goes for the Biblical inerrantists.  The will comes into it, as I like to say, because the discursive intellect entangles itself in problems it cannot unravel.  

In my own case, I have had enough mystical, religious, aesthetic, moral, and paranormal experiences to convince me to take the Unseen Order with utmost seriousness -- and I do. And so that's the way I live, devoting most of my time to prayer, meditation-contemplation, lectio divina, study of the great classics of philosophy and theology, moderate ascesis, such good works as befit my means and station, and writing philosophy, which I view as itself a spiritual practice.  I mean: what could be a better use of a life than to try to ascend to the Absolute by all possible routes?  But this won't make any sense to you unless you perceive this world, the Seen Order, to be a vanishing quantity devoid of ultimate reality and value, and our fleeting lives in it unsatisfactory and ultimately meaningless, if they end in annihilation.  

So I say to my friend: you are on your own. Going to a church and participating in external rites and rituals won't do you much if any good, nor will confessing your sins to a pedophile priest. (Ex opere operato is on my list of topics to discuss.) There is no need to go outside yourself; truth dwells in the inner man. Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi. In interiore homine habitat veritas. (Augustine) Review your life and try to recall those moments and those experiences which seemed most revelatory of the Real, and live and then die in accordance with them. 

In the face of temptation, ask yourself: How do I want death to find me? In what state?  The lures of this world are alluring indeed, and it is well-nigh impossible to resist them, as witness the corruption of (some of) the cardinals who voted on the new pope. You have a sense of the Unseen Order if you sense that temptation ought to be resisted.  Whence the bindingness of that Ought? Whence the vocation to a Higher Life?  Are they just illusions of brain chemistry? Could be! You decide!

I myself have decided that The Greatest Temptation must be resisted.

One more point about church-going. It may be necessary for those excessively social animals lacking inner directedness, but I'd say that Matthew 6:6 hits the mark: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." (KJV)

But I don't want to deny that special places, some of them churches, have an aura that aids and may even induce contemplative repose.  I recall a time in Venice, Italy when I entered an ancient and nondescript little church and spent a few moments there alone. Upon exiting, I was unusually calm and collected.  My girlfriend at the time, noticing the transformation,  remarked, "You ought to go to church more often." The following, though AI-generated, is spot on. 

Aura of Places

An aura of a place can be described as a distinctive atmosphere or feeling that seems to surround and emanate from it. This term is often used metaphorically to convey the unique quality or vibe that a location gives off. For example, a place might have an aura of mystery, tranquility, or invincibility.

In spiritual contexts, auras are thought to be energy fields surrounding all living and non-living things, including places. These fields can be influenced by the emotions, thoughts, and experiences of those who frequent the location.

 

Rogues in Bergoglio's Footsteps

The truth is too magnificent a thing to be the the property of any one religious institution.  Too magnificent a thing, and too elusive a thing to be owned or housed or patented or reduced to the formulas of a sect or finitized or fought over.

Institutions too often value their own perpetuation over the fulfillment of their legitimate mandates. Examples are legion. This observation occurred to me last year as I watched Representative Chip Roy's grilling of the prevaricating FBI director Christopher Wray.  It is especially pertinent to churches of whatever stripe. 

Idolatry is ubiquitous. Bibliolatry and ecclesiolatry are species thereof, not that 'Romanists' could be accused of the former.

Things are not looking good for the RCC. Jim Bowman reports.

Life in Time

A life in time is a paltry substitute for eternal life, but at least we know we are alive, and in time, whereas we don't know much if anything about eternal life.  On rare occasions, however, some of us catch a glimpse of something that seems to fits the description.  These occasional glimpses fuel a faith that makes life in time a game worth the candle.

Those who claim to know what they can only believe do a disservice to both knowledge and faith. 

Technical Difficulties

Due to problems with the Typepad comment system, comments will not be accepted or answered until these problems can be resolved. This may take a while. Afflicted as I am with cacoethes scribendi, posting will continue.  I thank you for your 'patronage.'

The Presuppositionalist Challenge to My Position

Substack latest.  

Do not comment unless you have carefully read the entire article.

Illegal Alien on NYC Subway Rapes Corpse!

Story here:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) slammed The New York Times Saturday over a story about a suspect who allegedly raped a corpse on a New York City subway, saying the reporters failed to mention the man was in the U.S. illegally. 

The defense will no doubt argue that the man cannot be guilty as charged inasmuch it is impossible to rape a corpse. Have the journos over at the NYT degenerated so far that they have never heard of necrophilia?  

Or maybe the defense will argue that since illegal entry is no crime because no one is illegal, the same should hold for illegal entry into a living human's body, and for illegal entry into the corpse of a human.  There cannot be illegal entry in any sense since everyone has the right to go wherever he wants.  The corpse should have "welcomed the stranger."

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Cowboys of the Open Road

Advanced AI and robotics may push us humans to the margin, and render many of us obsolete. I am alluding to the great Twilight Zone episode, The Obsolete Man. What happens to truckers when trucks drive themselves?  For many of these guys and gals, driving trucks is not a mere job but a way of life. 

It is hard to imagine these cowboys of the open road  sitting in cubicles and writing code. The vices to which they are prone, no longer held in check by hard work and long days, may prove their destruction. The topic is huge and beyond my paygrade. In any case it's Saturday night,  I'm drinking a Jack and Coke, and dreaming of the open road.

Sunday morning addendum: we need to think about the infantilization brought about by our technology.  Laura Trump interviewed Elon Musk last night on her show.  He will be scaling back his work on DOGE to get back to his various projects, including work on self-driving cars. One upside, though, is that the elderly will be able to retain their independence when they are no longer able to drive safely. Musk made  a comment to the effect that it won't be long before seeing a person driving a car will be as unusual as seeing someone traveling via horse and buggy.

Eddy Rabbit, Drivin' My Life Away

Dave Dudley, Six Days on the Road

Buck Owens, Truck Drivin' Man

Red Sovine, Phantom 309. Tom Waits' cover. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd, Truck Drivin' Man

Cody Jinks, Lost Highway

Tony Justice, One Mile at a Time 

Seatrain, I'm Willin'

I've been warped by the rain
Driven by the snow
I'm drunk and dirty, and don't you know
That I'm still, yes I'm still willin'

I ride the highway, late at night
I see my pretty Alice, in every headlight, Alice, Dallas Alice

[Chorus] I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah
I've driven every kind of truck that's ever been made
I've even rode the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
If you give me weed, whites, and wine
Show me a sign, and I'll be willin' to keep on movin'

. . .

And I've been from Tucson to Mexicali, Tehachapi to Tonopah
I've driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
I've even rode the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
If you give me weed, whites, and wine
Show me a sign, and I'll be willin' to keep on movin' 

How Trump Won the Canadian Election

Philip Cunliffe:

In electing a consummate globalist to defend Canadian sovereignty, Canadian voters exhibited a voluble national pride more commonly seen south of the border. In that sense, even if Trump may not get his 51st state of the Union, he has nonetheless imposed the value of sovereignty and national independence on the archetypal post-national state. Far from signalling a global liberal rally against Trump, the fact that the liberals were only able to beat Trump by embracing the language of national independence, national interest, and sovereignty make clear that Carney’s electoral victory happened on Trumpian terrain. 

Finally! An End to Taxpaper Subsidization of NPR and PBS

We conservatives have been talking about this for years, but it's all been talk. Until now.  A re-post from 10 December 2014:

National Public Radio and the Tit of the State

"If the product is so superior, why does it have to live on the tit of the State?" (Charles Krauthammer)

One answer is that the booboisie  of these United States is too backward and benighted to appreciate the high level of NPR programming.  The rubes of fly-over country are too much enamored of wrestling, tractor pulls, and reality shows, and, to be blunt, too stupid and lazy to take in superior product.

Being something of an elitist myself, I am sympathetic to this answer.  The problem for me is twofold.  NPR is run by lefties for lefties.  That in itself is not a problem.  But it is a most serious problem when part of the funding comes from the taxpayer.  But leftists, blind to their own bias, don't see the problem.  Very simply, it is wrong to take money by force from people and then use it to promote causes that those people find offensive or worse when the causes have nothing to do with the legitimate functions of government.  Planned Parenthood and abortion.  NEA and Piss Christ.  Get it?

And then there is the recent anti-Christian nastiness.  Just in time for Christmas.  What a nice touch.  Would these 'liberal' pussies mock Muhammad similarly? 

Second, we are in fiscal crisis.  If we can't remove NPR from the "tit of the State," from the milky mammaries of massive Mama Obama government, what outfit can we remove from said mammaries? If we can't zero out  NPR how are we going to cut back on the waste, fraud, and abuse of 'entitlement' programs such as Social Security?

Ah, but no one wants to talk about a real crisis when there is Ferguson to talk about.

Don't get me wrong.  I like or rather liked  "Car Talk" despite the paucity of automotive advice and the excess of joking around.  I even like the PBS "Keeping Up Appearances" in small doses.  But if frivolous flab like this can't be excised, what can?

"If the product is so superior, why does it have to live on the tit of the State?" (Charles Krauthammer)

One answer is that the booboisie  of these United States is too backward and benighted to appreciate the high level of NPR programming.  The rubes of fly-over country are too much enamored of wrestling, tractor pulls, and reality shows, and, to be blunt, too stupid and lazy to take in superior product.

Being something of an elitist myself, I am sympathetic to this answer.  The problem for me is twofold.  NPR is run by lefties for lefties.  That in itself is not a problem.  But it is a most serious problem when part of the funding comes from the taxpayer.  But leftists, blind to their own bias, don't see the problem.  Very simply, it is wrong to take money by force from people and then use it to promote causes that those people find offensive or worse when the causes have nothing to do with the legitimate functions of government.  Planned Parenthood and abortion.  NEA and Piss Christ.  Get it?

And then there is the recent anti-Christian nastiness.  Just in time for Christmas.  What a nice touch.  Would these 'liberal' pussies mock Muhammad similarly? 

Second, we are in fiscal crisis.  If we can't remove NPR from the "tit of the State," from the milky mammaries of massive Mama Obama government, what outfit can we remove from said mammaries? If we can't zero out  NPR how are we going to cut back on the waste, fraud, and abuse of 'entitlement' programs such as Social Security?

Ah, but no one wants to talk about a real crisis when there is Ferguson to talk about.

Don't get me wrong.  I like or rather liked  "Car Talk" despite the paucity of automotive advice and the excess of joking around.  I even like the PBS "Keeping Up Appearances" in small doses.  But if frivolous flab like this can't be excised, what can?

Stephen Miller Scorches the Dems

Watch this video, five minutes. I saw Miller live yesterday deliver this speech and tear the Washington press corps to pieces. He blasted the bums as they deserved to be blasted. Thank you, David Horowitz, for mentoring Miller. Rest in peace, you fought the good fight.

Life is Hierarchical

An old lie of leftists is compressed into one of their more recent abuses of language: 'equity.' So-called 'equity' is wokespeak for equality of outcome or result. 'Equity'  in this obfuscatory sense cannot occur and ought not be pursued.

It cannot occur because people are not equal either as individuals or as groups. That is a plain fact. Leftists won't face it, however, because they confuse the world as they would like it to be with the world as it is. 

'Equity' ought not be pursued because its implementation is possible only by the violation of the liberty of the individual by a totalitarian state apparatus precisely unequal in power to those it would equalize.

Life is a ladder.  It is many ladders, as many as there are directions of achievement. On any ladder, some are above, some below. Look up without envy; look down without contempt. Climb as high as you can on as many ladders as you are on.  Lend a hand to those below; if any you help should surpass you, take satisfaction at your mentorship and pride in their accomplishment. 

Every Generation Faces a Barbarian Threat . . .

. . . in its own children. 

A Substack entry in honor of David Horowitz, recently passed, from whom we the teachable have learned so much. We salute you, sir, and we will carry on to the best of our limited abilities.

The Fall of Saigon

Fifty years ago today. I wrote in my journal (30 April 1975):

Saigon was overrun by the communists today. 150 billion dollars and 50,000 American lives wasted during the war.

58,00 is now the standardly cited figure. Goeffrey Wawro, The Vietnam War: A Military History (Basic Books, 2024, 652 pp.):

The war had killed 58,000 Americans, 250,000 ARVNs, [South Vietnamese army] half a million South Vietnamese civilians, and 1.4 million NVA [North Vietnamese army] and Viet Cong. Four million Vietnamese . . . had been killed or wounded. [. . .] In their rushed evacuation, the Americans left behind important files, including the names of 30,000 Vietnamese who had worked in the Phoenix Program. These people were the first to be rounded up, tortured, and killed by their "liberators." Two and a half million South Vietnamese were placed under arrest as nguy -- "puppets." Anyone affiliated with the old regime was sent without trial to one of the 300 "thought-reforms" camps in rural areas. (529)

Wawro goes on to describe the brutality of the labor camps and the 165,000 political prisoners who died in them. Like the Khmer Rouge, the NV commies lied to their victims, promising them a detention period of only ten days for "re-education." The vast majority of them fell for the lies and ended up detained for up to fifteen years in starvation conditions.

The great David Horowitz died yesterday.  Here is a worthwhile article about the former red-diaper commie who came to his senses. Charlie Kirk pays his respects on X. Now I know how Stephen Miller came to be so astute:

Twenty-five years ago, David mentored a high school student named Stephen Miller. He supported him through Duke, through the Senate, and into the Trump White House. Today, Stephen is one of the most impactful architects of America First immigration policy. A legend thanks to David's mentorship. As Politico wrote, “If you want to understand the immigration policies [Trump] has put into place, you have to also understand Horowitz.” David's fingerprints are all over the populist revival of the last decade.

What did I do during the war?

Around  the time of the Tet Offensive in January of 1968, I was ordered  to downtown Los Angeles for my "pre-induction physical." Due to a birth defect I have hearing in one ear only, and so I failed the physical. I was  classified 1-Y, which was later changed to 4-F.  In any case I had won a California State Scholarship to attend college, and that would have kept me from harm's way for four years, after which the lottery kicked in.

That's my story in a few words. What's yours?

Political Crapulosity

In the early 'eighties I subscribed to The New Republic. But in those days it hadn't yet become the politically crapulous rag it is now.  Try to wrap your head around this load of garbage:

There is much to say about these 100 days. The odor of fascism is unmistakable—and entirely intentional. The bullying of universities and law firms . . . the purposeful lawlessness of so many actions, designed to force showdown after showdown at what Trump assumes will be a pliant Supreme Court; the daily inversion of reality peddled by Karoline Leavitt, Cabinet officials, and not least Trump himself.

Refutation would be easy enough. But this stuff is beneath refutation. You don't refute lunatics or engage them in conversation. 

We have a war on our hands, friends, and you'd better man and woman up.  Especially you young people who can expect to be around for a while.

How much of this vitriolic filth is TDS and how much willfully perverse self-enstupidation? How could anyone in his right mind fail to see the good that  Trump has done in a scant 100 days?  

You are well-advised to invest in precious metals in the broad sense of the term.  Our political enemies are just that, enemies: there can be no peace with them. I now seriously question whether we should remain polite in our dealings with them.

Such a Wonderful Pope!

Simon Caldwell via Jim Bowman:

He [Pope Francis] used his authority to protect sinister friends from justice, such as Father Marko Rupnik, a fellow Jesuit who was accused of the serial rape of more than a dozen nuns, sometimes in quasi-satanic rituals. Rupnik was excommunicated latae sententiae (automatically) after he granted absolution in the confessional to a woman with whom he was having sex. This was an offence of such enormity under the Code of Canon Law that only the Pope could lift the sentence. Rupnik was rehabilitated and to this day is a priest in good standing who is living in a convent (where else?). It is good to have friends in high places.

This  is hard to believe. Can you corroborate the above from your sources, Vito?

De mortuis nil nisi bonum has an expiration date, and in the case of some it comes up quick.

Be neither Bohemian nor Bourgeois

A Substack short with a scene from "Barfly."

Is that Bukowski at the bar?

A-Eternalism and B-Eternalism

In an earlier thread, I raised the following problem for eternalism:

Long ago, in ancient Rome's Coliseum, gladiatorial battles took place. No one will say that such battles are still going on, or that any such battles are occurring at present. But if eternalism is true, and a past gladiatorial battle is as real/existent as a present battle in the Ukraine, say, except that the first occurs at an earlier temporal location than the latter, then it seems that the gladiatorial battles are tenselessly occurring -- which is highly counterintuitive.

Suppose time travel is possible. Suppose we travel back in time to the gladiatorial battles in the Coliseum. Will we find slaughter going on there? If so, then the name 'eternalism' will be most apt: the slaughter will continue eternally. But this is highly counterintuitive!

Malcolm Pollack responded:

Well, there's the problem for eternalism, as I've noted before: it offers no explanation for the subjective experience of time's passage; for why the fundamental fact of our experience is a succession of "nows" that come and go; for the sequential privileging of small (but not infinitesimal!) slices of M [the four-dimensional manifold of events/spacetime points] as "now". I think it must be connected deeply, or even somehow identical with, that other titanic mystery, namely that of consciousness.

But the problem I am raising is different.  It arises whether or not we bring consciousness into the picture.  We will be able to appreciate the difference between Pollack's problem and mine if we distinguish between two types of eternalism, A-eternalism and B-eternalism.

A- and B-eternalism both reject the presentist restriction of what exists*, i.e. what exists simpliciter, to what exists (present-tense). Thus both types of eternalist hold that past, present, and future items exist*. The two positions agree as to temporal ontology: they agree about what there is in time.  The ontological question, Quine famously said, is the question formulable in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: What is there?  So the temporal-ontological question is: What is there in time? On this question, both types of eternalist agree.

The two types differ, however, in that the A-eternalist accepts that there are such irreducible non-relational properties as presentness, pastness, and futurity – the so-called A-properties – whereas the B-eternalist denies that there are any A-properties: there are only the B-relations. Thus the two types of eternalist differ over the nature of time, but not over what there is in time.  The A- and B-eternalists differ over the nature of time in that they differ over whether real time, time as it is in mind-independent reality, is exhausted by the B-series, the series of events ordered by the dyadic B-relations, earlier than, later than, and simultaneous with. The B-eternalist says that real time is exhausted by the B-series. The A-eternalist demurs: there are, in addition to the B-relations, the A-properties, the monadic or non-relational properties of presentness, pastness, and futurity.

The A-eternalist is equipped to admit the non-subjective passage of time. Temporal passage is real  independently of our subjective time-conscious inasmuch as it consists in the shifting exemplification of  the monadic (non-relational) A-properties by the events in the B-series. Consider, for example, three events/processes: my birth, my present blogging, and my death.  My death exemplifies the property of being future but will soon enough lose that property and come to exemplify the property of being present, after which it will come to exemplify the property of being past, and then ever more past.  My present blogging -- the blogging of this very post -- will become past and ever more past. My birth which is now past will become ever more past.  The three events themselves are 'eternal' in the somewhat strained sense of existing, though not occurring, at every time.

The A-eternalist's admission of A-properties allows for the real separability of temporal presentness from existence. This allowance in turn allows for a 'moving spotlight' theory of time according to which temporal passage is real (and thus neither merely apparent nor illusory). So when I die I lose the purely temporal property of being present but I remain in existence* and come to acquire the purely temporal property of being past.  When I die I will 'move away' from the present by becoming wholly past and ever more past. Or you could think of the 'moving spotlight' of the Now moving forward and leaving me 'in the dark,' i.e., non-present. Non-present but not non-existent*!

In sum, on A-eternalism, temporal passage is real and non-subjective, hence neither merely apparent nor illusory (as the great McTaggart thought).

The Moral Horror of Murder

One man takes from another what neither can give: life.  

It is passing strange that leftists do not share with us this moral horror, as witness their casual attitude toward even the most vicious modes of criminality. 

Political Nominalism

One form political nominalism takes is loyalty to a political label. 

In late November I heard a self-described "life-long Democrat" on Fox cogently explain why Kamala Harris lost the election and why her political career ought to be over. Despite the accuracy of his analysis, the fool remains a Dem! That makes no sense. When the thing labeled no longer exists, why cling to the label?

It is not as if the old Democratic Party can be brought back. The transmogrification unto wokery has proceeded too far. The young Turks have taken it over, the 'woke' squadristi mainly, AOC et al.,  and the members of the old guard (Pelosi, Schumer, et al.) are on their last legs. But there is no fool like an old fool, and a huge, but dwindling, number of useful idiots still vote Democrat out of misplaced loyalty to an empty label or else because of their delusional opposition to Trump. But they, like Pelosi & Co., will soon pass into the night, and the sooner the better, not that I wish them physically dead; I wish them politically dead. The physically dead can't make political mischief.

But wait a minute! Don't the dead vote in Dementocratic precincts?

 

Trump and the Restoration of Meritocracy

Heather MacDonald on President Trump's latest EO. Sanity returns. 

Philosophy and Science: Continuity or Discontinuity? Presentism Meets Physics

Malcolm Pollack writes,

 

I hope you'll forgive me for hammering you with emails, but I just wanted to thank you for inviting me to join you in giving this paper a careful going-over. [Christian Wuetrich, "The Fate of Presentism in Modern Physics" in New Papers on the Present, Philosophia Verlag, 2013, 91-131. ] It has given me, as a civilian, yet another opportunity to appreciate the care and attention to detail that professionals in your field must bring to their work. I was struck in particular by this paragraph, from section 3:

 

  "The acceptance of a conflict between presentism and not only SR [Special Relativity], but all of current, as well as prospective, fundamental physics paired with an insistence on presentism amounts to a rather comprehensive rejection of physics. It thus fundamentally contravenes naturalism, a venerable tradition going back at least to Aristotle. According to naturalism, philosophical—and metaphysical—inquiry is continuous with scientific inquiry. To be sure, naturalism is not a logical truth—it is a substantive philosophical thesis. But it is one whose defence has to wait for another day; for present purposes, I simply assume a minimal naturalism which demands that no philosophical thesis be in manifest contradiction to facts established by our best science. Restricting this weak thesis to metaphysics, it can be translated as necessitating that the physically possible worlds are a subset of the metaphysically possible ones, for if the metaphysical theories were in contradiction to the physical ones, then there would have to be some physically possible worlds (and perhaps all) which are metaphysically impossible, as for the metaphysical theory to be incompatible with physics, it would have to rule out some physically possible worlds as impossible. In other words, metaphysics would a priori deem impossible what physics affirms is possible. Assuming that all physically possible worlds are also logically possible, I see little justification for disavowing this weak form of naturalism." 

 

I find this precision, clarity, and style delightful entirely on its own, quite apart from any conclusions it may be leading to. Much obliged.

 

Malcolm,

 

I thank you in return for giving me the opportunity to achieve clarity on these topics in connection with a book on metaphilosophy I must finish before the Grim Reaper (Benign Releaser?) lops my head off.   As a chess player you know what it is like to be in time trouble with Sudden Death looming, except that it this case it is a scythe and not a flag that will fall.  And what the fall will end won't be a mere game.

 

I will begin by listing some of the main points in W's article, clarifying the key terms, and formulating some of the issues that arise.  Ask any questions or make any objections that occur to you. If you find anything I say less than clear, say so.  Double quotes mean that I am literally quoting the author. For all other purposes I use single 'quotes.' (One of those uses is instanced in the immediately preceding sentence.) Numbers in parentheses are page references.

 

1) The author is committed to thinking of time as spacetime, a four-dimensional manifold M composed of "points."  (92) These are spacetime points or temporal locations specifiable by x, y, z, and t coordinates, where a spacetime point is a punctuate (duration-less) instant.  I take it that M is a continuum so that, between any two instants, or temporal locations, there are continuum-many (2-to-the-alepth-null) instants or temporal locations. This assumes Cantorian set theory and the actual (as opposed to potential) infinite.  But then  on the same page, he speaks of "events."  As I see it, an event is not the same as the time(s) at which it occurs.  (The occupant of a spatiotemporal location is not the same as the location it occupies.) I should think that there are times when nothing happens, i.e., when no event occurs,  but that whenever an event occurs it must occur at a time or over times.  The same goes for spacetime points. Some are unoccupied by physical events, no? An event that is not punctuate like an instant I call  a process, even it it lasts only a nanosecond. Nanoseconds and related terms pertain to the "metric" which applies to M. (92)  An example of a process, i.e., an extended event, is a storm or a melody.  A side point worth pondering is that the universe, supposing it began to exist with a Big Bang, could be metrically finite (12 or so billion years old) despite M's having the cardinality of the continuum, which implies that there are continuum-many events/times between now and the Big Bang

 

One of the issues that arises here, one not discussed by W., is whether concrete things such as the piano on which the melody is played can be "assayed" (technical term of Gustav Bergmann with mining provenience) as extended events or processes. If so, then pianos and piano players have temporal parts in addition to spatial parts -- a view vehemently denied by many philosophers.  A melody is not wholly present at every time at which it exists; is the same true of Billy Joel? Melodies and storms unfold over time; they have phases. Do persons unfold over time? Is a person a diachronic collection of person-phases? A person persists through time, no doubt -- 'persists' is a datanic term  in my lexicon -- but does he persist by enduring or by perduring? Is a person or a concrete thing/substance wholly present at every time at which it exists or not? This question goes to the back burner.

 

2) Given the fundamental presupposition that time is in reality spacetime, eternalism and presentism are defined by the author as follows. Eternalism is "the position claiming physical existence for all events in M," whereas presentism "partitions events into past, present, and future events" together with the proviso  that only the events belonging  to the present partition enjoy ontological privilege. (92) "Thus the sum total of physical existence is a proper subset of that according to the eternalist." (92)

 

This I find less than clear. What does the author mean by physical existence? As opposed to what? Surely not mental or abstract/ideal existence.  Does he mean the existence of events at times, as opposed to the times at which they exist?  An event is not the same as the spacetime point or points at which it occurs.  Is it not obvious that the occupant of a location, whether spatial or temporal or spatiotemporal, is not the same as the location? A location exists just as well occupied as unoccupied. Does the author mean to tell us that events exist physically but that times, though they exist, do not exist physically?

 

Connected with this lack of clarity is the following objection. Presentism is usually explained as the view that temporally present items (whether times or events or members of other categories) alone exist, and thus that wholly past items and wholly future items do not exist, where 'wholly' rules out overlap with the present.   If that is what is meant by presentism, then W. hasn't captured it in his definition.  For if present items are a proper subset of all existing items (spatiotemporal locations  and events at those locations) then those past and future items also exist. But then we are no longer talking about presentism.  Presentism is precisely the denial of the existence of the past and the future. The author appear to be begging the question in favor of eternalism by assuming that eternalism is true and that presentism can be defined in terms of it.  This ignores the fact that eternalism and presentism are mutually exclusive.

 

If presentism is the logical contradictory of eternalism, then what exists according to presentism cannot be a proper subset of what exists according to eternalism.  The author my be fudging the issue with his obscure talk of physical existence.

 

3) We were told that presentism partitions M into past, present, and future events.  Now what makes present events present? Here is where simultaneity comes into the picture.  Simultaneity is an equivalence relation (reflexive, symmetrical, transitive) that effects the partition that creates a proper subset of events, the present ones, and distinguishes them from those to their past and those to their future.  This puzzles me for a couple of reasons which I will sketch now, and try to explain more clearly tomorrow.

 

First, the present as we experience it is not punctuate but specious, in William James's sense of 'specious.' It has a certain spread or duration.  'Now' in 'The sun is now rising' picks out a short period of time that had not yet begun when the sun was below the horizon and will be over a short time later, say in an hour. Sunrise is not an instantaneous event by a a process.

 

Second, how does what the author says distinguish the present present from past and future presents? After all, at every time or temporal location t in M there is an equivalence class of simultaneous events at t. It follows that there are many -- continuum-many! -- presents, each equally present at itself.  The present present, however, is not merely present at itself, but present simpliciter. It is the 'privileged present,' the absolute present.  Presentism is committed to an absolute present. So again, it seems that our author has not put his finger on what privileges the present present, and distinguishes it from past and future presents.