Witch hunt this Sunday!
Clearly many of these peasants are expressing complex emotions in a fluidly dynamic space, reinforcing community standards and exploring boundaries of empathetic inclusion.
Who are you to resist the heat of bodies juxtaposed here, reshaping meta-narratives of dominant and historical power-relationships?
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The need for meaning and ritual abounds, and when violence erupts in the name of such need, it’s less of a surprise these days, but no less unacceptable for a free society:
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Be careful on Twitter, now.
Perhaps a digital bulletin board with no cost to entry and anonymous handles, governed by unclear standards and what seems to me rather politically biased management, just might amplify the sound and fury of outraged fools.
Should you thank God, or the Watchmaker-God, or the Nothingness, or the Oneness-connecting-all-living-things, or Xenu, or (P)rogress, you’d damned well better resist the Devil, or the devil-take-the-hindmost:
Roger Scruton on the lynch-mobs of social media:
‘What is to be done about this? I have a couple of suggestions. The first is to set up an institution call it the Ministry of Truth in some legally insulated country (oddly enough, Russia springs to mind) devoted to tweeting malicious stories about everyone who is anyone. If everyone becomes a victim of this inherent malice people will begin to see Twitter for what it is,as a tool that easily into the Devil’s hands.’
Addition: The Devil?
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I thought human nature was basically good, made bad by ‘historical forces,’ and ‘systems of oppression’? Perhaps institutions are only as good as their ideas and the people within them?
You know, concerts like the below make a fella wonder if we’re in good hands.
Fundamental differences of religion, law, ideas and government resulting in murder and civilizational-type clashes?
Bring in James Taylor!:
Dead girls at a pop-concert? Coldplay performing a moving twilight cover of Oasis ought to cover it. Some sing to remember, some sing to forget.
How are the institutions in the West actually performing?
Much of this may come down to your views on human nature, and from there, which kinds of ideas guide the people within our institutions. For it is these institutions which shape those people and have serious implications for the rest of us (shaping us too):
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On that note, many folks invoking the truth of faith and the necessity of Christian doctrine are in a smaller minority these days, and have some important things to say. Personally, I’m not clear what is absolutely true and necessary in order to maintain a decent moral life, truth and institutional integrity.
I’d prefer a rebuttal to Pinker’s arguments.
Rod Dreher on Patrick Dineen’s book, and the ever-needy Andrew Sullivan. The doom that awaits:
‘The reason the brilliant Steven Pinker can’t understand why there is so much unhappiness is because he is a materialist. Patrick Deneen, Andrew Sullivan, and people like us understand otherwise. There is no replacement for the company of other people.’
Related On This Site: Maybe if you’re defending the current conservative position, you don’t want to bring up the ‘aristocratic radical’ : Repost-Dinesh D’Souza And Daniel Dennett at Tufts University: Nietzsche’s Prophesy..
A return to Straussian neo-classicism?: From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’…Harvey Mansfield At Defining Ideas: ‘Democracy Without Politics?’
Neo-neo conservatism, new atheism and post socialism for the ’68ers? Via Youtube: Christopher Hitchens On Faith And Virtue…
Stanley Fish At The NY Times Blog: ‘The Last Professors: The Corporate Professors And The Fate Of The Humanities’…From The Harvard Educational Review-A Review Of Martha Nussbaum’s ‘Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education.’,,
Roger Scruton In The American Spectator Via A & L Daily: Farewell To Judgment
From Edward Feser: ‘Nagel And His Critics Part IV’
John Gray Reviews Jonathan Haidt’s New Book At The New Republic: ‘The Knowns And The Unknowns’
Steven Pinker somewhat focused on the idea of freedom from violence, which tends to be libertarian. Yet, he’s also skeptical of the more liberal human rights and also religious natural rights. What about a World Leviathan?: At Bloggingheads Steven Pinker Discusses War And Thomas Hobbes…From Reason.TV Via YouTube: ‘Steven Pinker on The Decline of Violence & “The Better Angels of Our Nature”‘…Simon Blackburn Reviews Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial Of Human Nature” Via the University Of Cambridge Philosophy Department