Philosophy & Abstract Thoughts

Nostalgic for the Future

Edward Curtin Despite its pedigree as a fundamental element in civilization’s greatest stories, nostalgia has come to be associated with treacly sentimentality, defeatism, and spurious spiritual inclinations. Homer, Vergil, Dante, the Biblical writers, and their ilk would demur, of course, but they have been dead for a few years, so progress’s mantra urges us to …

Harmless Untruths

Julien Charles In Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel Cat’s Cradle, the deadpan realist from the Midwest–the 20th century’s Mark Twain–delivers an instructive review of the way in which Americans hold scientists in exceedingly high esteem—and the perils therein. One of his characters is scientist Felix Hoenikker. Hoenikker is a partial reflection of Robert Oppenheimer, who led …

When Force Meets Power: The Inevitable Collapse of the New World Order

Ryan Matters When the famous quantum theorist, David Bohm, read Jiddu Krishnamurti’s “The First and Last Freedom”, he was blown away by his insight and knowledge regarding the phenomenon of the observer and the observed. Despite having no university-level training, much less formal education in the sciences, Krishnamurti had, through his philosophical writings, demonstrated a …

The Alibi of Tyrants

Julien Charles “The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.” Albert Camus On John Steppling’s Aesthetic Resistance podcast, guest Varun Mathur posited that we are witnessing – on a global scale – an event …

The Masquerade

Edward Curtin Audio Version New Feature! “They didn’t act like people and they didn’t act like actors.  It’s hard to explain.” JD Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, 1951 There’s a reason that Catcher in the Rye, published 70 years ago, has become such an iconic book, praised and condemned in equal measure. It is because it is about …

Goodbye Mr Marx

Darren Allen Audio Version New Feature! Many of the problems with socialism, both official and unofficial, in fact many of the problems with the world, can be traced back to Karl Marx. Not that all leftists are, say, Marxist materialists — many today are idealists (e.g. pacifistic Buddhists) — nor that all leftists are uncritical …