Wednesday, March 30, 2016

If Emerson Were Actually Read In America...




Not just given lip service, but actually read...

We boast the triumph of Christianity over Paganism, meaning the victory of the spirit over the senses; but Paganism hides itself in the uniform of the Church. Paganism has only taken the oath of allegiance, taken the cross, but is Paganism still, outvotes the true men by millions of majority, carries the bag, spends the treasure, writes the tracts, elects the minister, and persecutes the true believer.

RWE, Character.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Bernie Sanders For President




Because if you think that everything is just Hunky Dory, and all we need is more of the same, you just haven't been paying attention.

Friday, March 18, 2016

A Fierce Discontent



An appreciation of "first wave" Progressivism is critical to understanding our current political culture. Michael McGerr's 2003 history of that wave, A Fierce Discontent, offers a first-rate introduction to the well-springs of the movement, its successes, and its failures. One of the unintended benefits of reading this book is the way in which it aids the reader familiar with Richard Rorty's political thought in the task of placing his thinking within the broader context of American Progressivism. Insofar as a "second wave" of Progressivism may be rising to meet us, we must prepare ourselves for its coming. Rorty's insistence that we can (and should) cultivate a kind of "double life" ("Trotskyite" in the public sphere, devoted to "wild orchids" in private) is a potential safeguard against some of the excesses that brought about first wave Progressivism's "fall" in the aftermath of the First World War.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Wittgenstein And Justice



First published in 1972, Hannah Pitkin's Wittgenstein and Justice remains in print and is one of the best studies of Wittgenstein's later thought as well as a significant advancement of his thought through her perceptive application of it to questions of politics and sociology. It repays repeated reading (the best definition I know of a true classic).

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Fighting Bob























Bernie Sanders is a Progressive in the tradition of Fighting Bob La Follette.