Revisiting a good joke on pretentious literary modernism: “In a single rollicking afternoon McAuley and Stewart cooked up the collected works of Ernest Lalor Malley. Imitating the modern poets they most despised (‘not Max Harris in particular, but the whole literary fashion as we knew it from the works of Dylan Thomas, Henry Treece, and […]
The Ern Malley Poetry Hoax Read More »
An officer in the Polish underground voluntarily went to Auschwitz. “In September 1940, [Witold] Pilecki didn’t know exactly what was going on in Auschwitz, but he knew someone had to find out. He would spend two and a half years in the prison camp, smuggling out word of the methods of execution and interrogation. He
Witold Pilecki at Auschwitz Read More »
A man arrives at the gates of heaven. St. Peter asks, “Religion?” The man says, “Methodist.” St. Peter looks down his list, and says, “Go to room twenty-eight, but be very quiet as you pass room eight.” Another man arrives at the gates of heaven. “Religion?” “Baptist.” “Go to room eighteen, but be very quiet
Humor — Religion and the afterlife Read More »
In 1985, the historian of philosophy John Passmore claimed: “The Kantian revival is so widespread as scarcely to lend itself to illustration.” (p. 87) For more on the implications of Passmore’s strong claim and its implications for postmodernism, see p. 87 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions and translations
John Passmore in *Explaining Postmodernism* — on Kant’s significance Read More »
My discussion with Sargon of Akkad (aka Carl Benjamin) on these topics: What inspired you to write a book explaining postmodernism? Military history suggests that pomo is an attack strategy–is it? Pomo is brilliant but diabolical, but why is it the far Left that’s using it most? But pomo is not really communist, is it?
Sargon of Akkad conversation on pomo and destabilization strategies Read More »
My “Making Life Meaningful Without Religion” is now republished at Britain’s Church and State site: “… There’s a half-serious taxonomy that divides Christians into three types: Christmas Christians, Good Friday Christians, and Easter Sunday Christians. Christmas is about celebrating birth, benevolence, and the bounties of life. Good Friday is about suffering, sacrifice, and destruction. Easter
“Making Life Meaningful Without Religion” republished [Church and State] Read More »
From Jacob Burckhardt’s great The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860): In the Middle Ages, “Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation — only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the state
Individualism, and why I love the Renaissance Read More »
Great fun: An artworld scam from the 1920s.
Pavel Jordanowitch and the Disumbrationist School of Art Read More »