The servile state — Belloc’s 1913 prediction

One hundred years ago, Hilaire Belloc published The Servile State, with this provocative claim about his mixed intellectual world: “the effect of Socialist doctrine on Capitalist society is to produce a third thing different from either of its two begetters — to wit, the Servile State.” The nineteenth century was largely capitalist in theory and

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LIBERAL or ANTI-LIBERAL? J.S. MILL and FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. Lecture 8 of Modern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

“The symbol of this struggle, inscribed in letters legible across all human history, is ‘Rome against Judea, Judea against Rome.’” Lecture Eight: Liberal or Anti-Liberal? John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche Themes: Darwinism. Utilitarianism versus Expressive Power. Liberty versus Slavery. Social philosophy as derived from basic philosophy. Continuing or rejecting the Enlightenment? Pasteur. Darwin, biology

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The difficulties of being/not being an artist

The cartoon reminds me of an earlier post about Rimsky-Korsakov on the “hardship” of the composer’s life. According to Shostakovich: “Rimsky-Korsakov used to say that he refused to acknowledge any complaints from composers about their hard lot in life. He explained his position thus: Talk to a bookkeeper and he’ll start complaining about life and

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RESURGENT COLLECTIVISM: GEORG HEGEL and KARL MARX. Lecture 7 of Modern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

“Our mode of treating the subject is a Theodicaea,—a justification of the ways of God,—so that the ill that is found in the World may be comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil.” Lecture Seven: Resurgent Collectivism. Georg Hegel and Karl Marx Themes: After Kant, reality or reason?

RESURGENT COLLECTIVISM: GEORG HEGEL and KARL MARX. Lecture 7 of Modern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course] Read More »