Video: Critique of a Pro-Life Syllogism
Lila Rose offers a naive version of the pro-life argument. I spend a little time going over the premises, in order to try to strengthen her case.
The Wicked Rhyme of History
I have recently finished reading Charles Dickens’ 1840 novel, Barnaby Rudge. It is a novel of both romantic and political drama set in the period leading up to the famous London Gordon Riots of 1780. To offer a basic sketch of the story, it follows the lives of four families: the Haredales, the Willets, the Vardens, and the Rudges, between the years of 1775 and 1780, culminating in the riots of June, 1780.
The Digital Panopticon
I had a Nest thermostat (before it was gobbled up by Google) many years ago in a home in New Hampshire. It ran a furnace that burned supposedly eco-friendly pellets. To be honest, my only interest in the furnace was that it offered an economical alternative to the established expensive centralized gas utility. The thermostat was sufficient. I never used the phone app designed for it because the house was too small, and I saw no benefit in adjusting the temperature of my house while at the grocery store.
Literature and Culture: Criticism, or War?
A good friend of mine recently presented me with an abandoned draft of an article. My friend claimed the essay lacked a solid thesis. Though I was unable to convince my friend to revisit it, I still think that a thesis presents itself fairly clearly in the article’s depiction of the famous conflict between C. S. Lewis and F. R. Leavis. The gradual domination of academia by a regime of forgettable Leavis-like characters has a cause that we are only now beginning to examine seriously, as a culture.
What Is Conservatism For
Buckley defined Conservatism through the metaphor of a man standing on the train tracks of history, yelling ‘stop!’. Scruton defined Conservatism as the stewardship of the beautiful, in a particular way of life. The intuition expressed in both definitions is sound. For Conservatism to mean anything, then it must include the preservation or conservation of something important. Scruton is closer to that mark than Buckley is, because he’s closer to a fundamental principle than Buckley is.
Brief Thoughts on the Phaedrus
Why does Socrates spend so much effort defining and describing the soul in so much detail in the Phaedrus? He tells us outright, in the dialogue. It is because no man can gain true knowledge from a speech, if the orator does not himself know how his speech is going to guide the soul to its first memory of the unified reality of beauty, found in the divine realm. Dialectic is the way to wisdom, and dialectic can only be achieved through speech.
Star Trek: What Is a Person?
I have recently come round to the opinion that the original 1967 Star Trek TV series is one of the best things ever produced in the 20th century. I have been going through the old original series one episode at a time, to refamiliarize myself with it and to recapture a portion of the experience of having watched it as a boy. When I was a boy, most of what was going on in the episode ran past me.
LSP Summer School Conference Report
I decided to spend three of my vacation days on the London School of Philosophy’s “Summer School” conference, this week. The theme of the conference was “Philosophy: Past, Present, and Future”, and the talks focused heavily on the broad questions like the nature of philosophy, it’s role and purpose in society, it’s place in history, its relationship to art and literature, and the implications drawn from consideration of these questions, for the future.