How some political ideologies depend on the self-induced selflessness of their members. Here is Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism speaking of both Nazism and Communism: “How little the masses were driven by the famous instinct for self-preservation … . The fanaticism of members of totalitarian movements, so clearly different in quality from the greatest […]
Is everyone selfish? Hannah Arendt quotation Read More »
A contemporary Kantian on sex: Why sexual desire is objectifying — and hence morally wrong. (And here is the relevant text from Kant’s lectures on sex.) When I read (ahem) hardcore dualist stuff like this, I always wonder if they and I are talking about the same experience. For example, think about most people’s reaction
Icky then and icky now — a disciple of Kant on sex Read More »
Thanks to Jon Hersey’s article, I became aware of Julia Galef’s The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t (2021). Based on Hersey’s overview and this chart, Galef’s book looks very good for those interested in cognitive improvement:
Hersey, Galef, and the Scout Mindset Read More »
This week of the self-paced course on Objectivity features Stephen Hicks’s primer on Objective Journalism. “Objectivity means being committed to the facts and to using one’s mind as best one can to discover and interpret them. Journalistic objectivity includes being open to all the facts, doing research to discover the facts, verifying claims, and to integrating logically
Stephen Hicks, “A Primer on Objective Journalism” [Atlas Intellectuals] Read More »
In this unit of our course on Objectivity we feature Ayn Rand’s Objectivist Ethics. Rand was world-famous as the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged when a collection of essays entitled The Virtue of Selfishness was published in 1964. In the opening essay, Rand presents a sustained argument for her ethic of rational self-interest. The full course on Objectivity: https://www.atlassociety.org/course/objectivity.
Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics” [Atlas Intellectuals] Read More »
Via Roderick Long, here are the opening lines from “Madame Guillotine” (from the Scarlet Pimpernel musical): I know the gutter, and I know the stink of the street;kicked like a dog, I have spat out the bile of defeat.All you beauties who towered above me,you who gave me the smack of your rod –now I
Resentment psychology and “Madame Guillotine” Read More »
Anti-Semites, postmodernists, and alt-rightists as peas in a pod.
Online trolls’ rhetoric, Sartre’s anticipation Read More »