Mead

I had some Redstone Black Raspberry Nectar Mead last night and was it ever good.

Euler

Tomorrow is Euler's 300th Birthday. So happy birthday Euler and thank you for your brilliance!

Self-Censorship

Something about self-censorship and the nature of the philosopher will be posted here sometime today.

Action

"Tocqueville suspected that the greatest danger to freedom was not a state which prevented men from exercising liberty, but one which encouraged them to refuse the burdens of action."

-- Bruce James Smith, Politics & Remembrance: Republican Themes in Machiavelli, Burke, and Tocqueville, n. 106, p. 240

While there is something of "two sides of the same coin" present here, this way of looking at the issue underscores the perniciousness of tyranny. It is not simply that the tyrant acts like a tyrant; the tyrant also fosters a society where political, etc. culture is so weak that it numbs any "instinct" to overthrow the tyrant's rule.

Firefly Personality Quiz

You are Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)

Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 75% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 70% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 50% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 45% Wash (Ship Pilot) 40% River (Stowaway) 40% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 30% Inara Serra (Companion) 20% Alliance 15% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 0% A Reaver (Cannibal) 0%

Dependable and trustworthy. You love your significant other and you are a tough cookie when in a conflict.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz


I'm quite pleased with the result.

Jonestown

PBS' American Experience did a great piece on Jonestown last night (09/04/07).

For me Jonestown was the point in my then young life when the problem of evil reared its ugly head. It was also the first time that I discerned the sort of troubling things that groups of people can do given the requisite commitment. Indeed seeing the pictures of those bodies lined up as neatly as they were induced nightmares in me for days afterwards.

Note that I'm a great fan of the idea that our intellectual, etc. commitments are largely pre-political/pre-rational in nature. If I apply that idea to my reaction to Jonestown I could argue that the source my religious and political stances is in the events at Jonestown.

Don't Use Condoms; Masturbate

PARIS, April 6, 2007 (AFP) - French far-right presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen told a women's forum Thursday he was against making condoms freely available in schools -- advising young people to masturbate instead.

Whatever else can be said about Le Pen at the very least he is unpredictable.

Stem Cell Research

Here's a first: a British research team has grown part of a human heart from stem cells.

What do people think of stem cell research applications like this?

German Propaganda Archive

This site contains a nice collection of Nazi and GDR propaganda material.

This postcard is of special interest since the lines in the background are meant to represent Speer's "Cathedral of Light."

The British Hostages II

Geoffrey Wheatcroft on Britain's position in the middle east.

Speedy French Candidates

Paris - A French auto magazine has caught the cars of leading presidential candidates breaking the speed limit, raising doubts about their credentials as good citizens in the final straight of the race for France's top job.

To me what is so surprising about this story is the willingness of the French press to delve into what might have in the past be considered the "private" lives of French politicians. While that has been common enough in the U.S. over the past few decades, it is as far as I know a much newer trend in France.

Recent Purchases

David Trottier, The Screenwriter's Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script

Daniel Tanguay, Leo Strauss: An Intellectual Biography

Politics

I've been asked a couple of times why this blog isn't all that concerned with, hmm, politics, or rather what we think of as politics - that is current events. I guess that's a fair question given the title of this blog, so it of course deserves a fair answer.

I've become enamored with some aspects of the work of Leo Strauss. Not that I am a Straussian - I think a lot of what he had to offer was complete crap. However, one aspect of his thinking that I really buy into - at least for now - is his effort to differentiate between the philosopher and the partisan. Put rather crudely the philosopher is not committed to a particular political group, etc., whereas the partisan is and it seems to me that focusing on current events leads to the latter.

Why do I find any resonance in this distinction? I suppose it is because of my own blogging experiences. Being a partisan shuts out opposing viewpoints, which, even if they are not completely convincing in themselves, are likely as powerful as the views one does ascribe to. Of course I realize that there are certain weakness in the sort of thinking I'm adopting, in fact they are so easy to point out that I won't name them here. I also realize that I do not take this approach across the board - in other words I'm not going to give "equal time" to the claims of intelligent design advocates. Nevertheless, when it comes to a certain set of what one might call "big questions" partisanship seems at best inappropriate.

Tocqueville's Fears

Out of that grows the general truth that the individual is the sole and best placed judge of his own private concerns and society has the right to control his actions only when it feels such actions cause it damage or needs to seek the cooperation of the individual.

-- Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, pg. 78, (Penguin: 2003) (trans. Gerald Bevan)

This is really a description of what Tocqueville thought that he found in the U.S. It was not something that he necessarily recommended. Indeed while Tocqueville feared what one might call a Jacobin, centralized state, he also was uncomfortable with the extreme individuation he thought that he had found in America.

One Hundred Posts!

This blog has now reached one hundred postings! Huzzah!