Tagged: philosophy
My Best Friend Hates Me and Wants Me To Shut Up
Naturally, he is going to disagree with this headline. That’s fine.
Naturally, this disagreement is half the point.
I wrote a post yesterday, “In Defense of the Dark Ages.” It was lucid, it was clear, and it was to the point. Consequently, my bff disagreed with it.
I suppose I should include the detail that my bff has taken to calling himself a “professional historian” of late. (Back when I was growing up, we were taught, “starving artist”. Kids these days.) We spent about, oh, eight hours or more texting about all things disagreeable about my “grandiose pronouncement” (a unflattering tendency of mine).
In the end, after a bad night’s sleep (anyone else fight with their spouse when something good like free money happens at random?) I realized my friend was right. I did defend the “dark ages”. But the real truth, the fullest truth is that I defended the historical view (one of many) that there was a “dark age”. God forbid. And a proper blog post by a professional historian in 2020 (which I am evidently not) would’ve admitted this nuance. In other words, I displayed the fact that I am an ignorant bigot, racist, and probably, at least indirectly, responsible for all that is wrong in the world.
So here’s my correction post. I do admit I mis-titled my post. I should have called it, “In Defense of My View of History—AKA the Right View.”
Because it is the right view, including the void Dark Age and all.
When it comes to history, The West is my hill to die on, or as the kids say, my “ride-or-die”.
And just like that! The muse has left. Suddenly, this claim doesn’t feel compelling anymore. Signs of the times, I suppose.
In Defense of the Dark Ages
The other day I was on a video conference and while we were awaiting the leader, I took a moment to sell my “Great Books of the Western World” set. I do this any chance I get. These books are fantastic. Anyhow, the most intriguing part of the set is the concrete evidence of the so-called “Dark Ages”. Sitting between Augustine (vol 18) and Aquinas (vol 19) is a whole lotta nuthin’. That’s about 600 years of “darkness”. I find that nothingness exceedingly compelling.
Anyhow, while waiting, this lady says something that I’ve heard my whole life—without seeing a single shred of evidence—like, “I thought we’ve found that there really was plenty written by other cultures during that time.”
I said something like, “Nope”
Now, she thought she had the upper hand and she struck with something like, “So then why do people say that?”
I said, “Well, essentially, it’s just a lie.”
This never goes over well. Oh well.
Today I wanted to clarify my thoughts and record them for posterity.
If you don’t think the Dark Ages existed, you’re not just saying, “I think recent archeological enterprises have resulted in unearthing writings from between 400AD to 1000AD.” You’re actually saying, (without having even submitted one entry into the written record), “I know more than every human being who has lived since Augustine.” In other words, you’re saying, “My thoughts deserve to be in the Great Books,” despite having not even written them down.
Too strong? Don’t believe me? Allow me to explain.
It’s not just that some editor left out recently discovered writings, it’s that every other author whose genius (unlike yours) has made the world turn and given you almost every thought that you ever have or ever will have conceived left them out.
The negative claim that there was a “dark age” is not limited to a “dark age” for the West, unlike the positive claim that the Great Books of the Western World is limited to the “West”. It is about a “dark age” for human genius. And human genius, by definition, requires permanent results. And permanence is found in one of two ways—directly and indirectly. Directly, the genius is still in play. (Socrates’ skepticism, Trojan Horse, and “Oedipus’ complex” to name a few early ones.) Indirectly, the genius inspired other genius. (Euclid’s Elements > Space X’s reusable rockets. Even if Euclid stops being taught, his (and others’) ideas in the “Elements” can never be forgotten so long as we’re more technologically advanced than mankind was in 300BC.)
In any case, consider the pride in, “I thought we found writings during that period,” before you utter it. I really don’t believe that you intend to be so vain.
That’s the lasting beauty of the Great Books. To criticize them, you have to either willfully ignore them or submit your own entry. The danger in ignoring them is being played out as we live and breathe through masks in the West. The danger in submitting your own entry is public humiliation.
To be sure, the “Dark Age” was real.
About COVID Relief Checks, A Review of Tenet, by Christopher Nolan
SPOILER ALERT: I didn’t need Christopher Nolan and his latest sapio-sexy film in order to believe that there are no parallel universes or, what is the same, that we’re all living in one big tapestry of existence. I didn’t need him to highlight that entropy is conceptually unbound from time. No. I already believed it and have proved it. How else could I have spent my COVID money before it was even deposited, huh? How else?!
As the old proverb goes, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
Confession: I’ve been entraipsing through time my entire life. And it’s fantastic.
****
(To be sure, I needed the money because I thought I had all the books I would ever need—I was wrong. Now I have all the books I will ever need.)
Eating Cheese Curds with Ethiopians in Minnesota
My step-son and I came up with the designation “black haired people” for what in America are generally regarded as “black people”. He’s an immigrant from Ethiopia and, believe it or not, Ethiopians don’t view themselves as “black”. Within the formerly so-called “dark continent”, not too different from the our own “paper bag test” South, our Yahoo brethren see shades, too.
But I digress. That the cashier was “black haired” is not the point. The point is that I’m funny.
I was making a last minute trip to HyVee to pick up snack foods (hence the cheese curd headline) for this holiday. I never, never let my step-son have soda, but today I was feeling an uncommon sensation—which I *think* you all would call “giving”—and so I picked up, not just any old soda, but a four-pack of some locally crafted grape soda. This detail matters because the four cans are packaged together with some sort of homespun, yellow plastic tops. Upon inspection, I noticed that these yellow tops were a bit dirty, but I figured that it just adds character or charm.
Next, keep in mind there’s a mask-mandating pandemic going on, I am checking out and the black-haired cashier advises, “You’re going to want to wash the lids before you drink them.”
Naturally, I become very curious and ask, “Why? Is there some sort of disease going around?”
Her body language leading the near-running retreat, she immediately reduces her initial warning to a casual comment, “Oh, no. They’re just dirty.”
“There’s no disease going around?!” I clarify, cautiously betraying that I believe this fact may be a little bit bigger news than at first glance. After taking a prefatory deep breath, “Hey everyone!” I fake yell, then dramatically pausing to scan for her name tag, I add, “Cindy here says it’s over! It’s over!! We can take off the masks!”
She laughed at the ridiculous life we were apart of. I laughed at the ridiculous life we were apart of.
I then assumed the lady behind me who had insisted I go first (I had fewer items) wondered, “Could this man be The Captain?” And then I went on my merry way.
Once home, I ate cheese curds while my wife fed the baby and my step-son recounted a funny part of a book he knew I had heard him laughing at last night while he read and I played the piano.
Follow-Up To Yesterday’s NASB Translation One
One more note. When we look at the issue as I do, then the entire question changes. Instead of, “Did ‘brothers’ mean ‘brothers and sisters’ in certain passages?” we now ask, “What should we do if the majority of believers want to make that change?”
See how that question reveals a totally different issue than what the Lockman Foundation is defending? (My dad came up with that one when following my argument through.)
I’ll leave it here with: and this is why I love the Bible.
New Clarity On When The Fighting Will Begin
Not too different than normal, this post’s impetus is the lack of truth from any and all conservative pundits. Faithful readers will recall that, recently, my posts have explored my new understanding that John Locke’s role was as “War Inciter” (not just philosopher), as well as included some of my own hints or foreshadows of coming unrest. I don’t write these things to stake claim in knowledge of the future, but because I believe in being prepared. To be prepared for more of the same requires no writing, no thought, no words. People tell me what to do and where to be and I comply. But to be prepared for war requires definitions of terms and clearly stated objectives at the least, and these require some diary/blog entries. So here’s another.
This mask business, of late, has been effectively screaming into my ear that the real problem is psychological, not concrete. My evidence is that no one has been arrested (not for simply not complying) for not wearing a face covering at the appropriate time and place. The viral videos include ridiculous shouting matches and other nonsensical elements such as, “You don’t need those actual products to live a very, very good life! You started the fight. Admit it. And don’t start it again if you don’t want to engage in it—which would mean some obvious plan to achieve the outcome you desire.” To my thinking, this means that they—these viral videos which convey, on the surface, a great injustice to liberty—should be disregarded. They are irrelevant.
In my own out-of-my-house travels, I have noticed that there are some folks, at the number of one or two at a time in any location, who quietly go about their business without a mask. The local HyVee had a couple, both wearing clothing which was a healthy mix of biker/Proud Boy don’t-mess-with-us-today signaling, complete their shopping without a mask. Then, at a convenience store, I saw an older man (50s) pay for his gas (to probably the fourteenth 20 year old happy-to-receive-attention blondy in the last 5 years) without a mask—and it did not cause a commotion.
I include these observations in order to make my point that no one who follows the common sense indications can actually claim the mask is mandated by the government—despite the vocabulary choices of the messaging. In other words, if you don’t want to wear the mask, then you don’t have to. Experience proves that if you are confronted, nothing viral will happen if you stay silent, acknowledge to yourself that you knew it was a provocative act that you had engaged in, and then de-escalate the situation in one of the several approved methods—leave, put on a mask, tell jokes, befriend the person etc.
None of this, of course, answers the most pressing question that should be on your mind, being, “What do you do, Pete?”
I wear the mask.
“Aww, Pete, why? I thought you surely would be the one to lead us into the light and out of the darkness.”
Well, I may. But it’s not happening today. Short answer: I have some debt to take care of before I can lead. Or, since this is a diary entry, to speak freely, I have some debt to take care of before the day that my detractors believe that my illusions-of-grandeur will come crashing down.
Over the last decade I’ve worked both ends of the spectrum. I’ve had crummy minimum-wage jobs and I’ve had good-paying jobs. It’s been quite an adventure, really. But while I putzed around in the low income arena, I accrued some debt—naturally—and I’m real close to being out from under it. And on that day, couple years from now, the mask comes off.
Keep in mind, I believe that this coming or already present “fascism” and this “dictatorship” and this “socialism” that pundits warn us about can only ever have psychological power over us, and so I expect that—as stated above—I will actually just experience nothing that I haven’t already experienced living my life among you, which can be summarized as people wondering if I was homeschooled. I will likely have to arrange for some home delivery or carry out grocery options, but besides that, I don’t expect an inconvenience. (I’ll naturally do whatever work wants me to do—mask—while there because…that’s worth the money/lifestyle. Flying is pretty rewarding and I’ve done a lot more than put on a mask to achieve the trust of those who approve me for flight. This is a no-brainer.)
But I have resolved that I will gladly be one of the first to get arrested for not wearing a mask, once my affairs are in order. (I can’t stress enough that I do not believe this incarceration will ever happen.) I’ll gladly be the first because I do believe that if, in a couple years, citizens are being arrested for not wearing a mask, then the only morally correct path is inciting war. And while other more compelling writers will have emerged to incite you all into war, real folks—like me—will have to demonstrate character, resolve, perseverance, goodwill, integrity, and courage on the “street” level.
I repeat, for clarity, I believe that no state or federal agencies in the US will ever incarcerate people for not wearing masks. I believe that business owners who have complied with shutdowns and whatnot will eventually pushback and find that they are not arrested when they reopen according to whatever their instinctive, intuitive, and individual money-making strategies dictate. I believe quality of life expectations in the USA will have shifted, but not actually devolved into war. There will be a “blah” sentiment. Not the best life, but all things considered, not even close to misery, we’ll all admit, while some wear and some do not wear the mask.
To wrap it up nicely, I am frustrated that the conservative pundits are so out of touch. There is no possible future whose arrival we should fear. To prepare for war is not wrong, but that’s not what they even claim to be doing. And to prepare for living in a state of war, starts with action, not words. For me, that begins by placing my own affairs in order, preparing my own affairs, and only after I am squared away in these supposedly deteriorating political conditions will I start the fight. (If I can’t achieve “squared away” that’s either on me or the government, and if the government is the reason, that’s obviously a problem only war solves.) Finally, I believe that my lifelong ability to remain in the mainstream of life (I only wish I was homeschooled) means that when I fight, you’ll fight with me. And conversely, if I never fight, then there will be no fight.
From where I sit, then, the future is looking good.
My Depressing Fantasy
I’ve been following my own advice and spending quite a bit of time watching fantasy movies and reading fantasy books. I should clarify here that I mean romance more than fantasy. All the normal bounds of the time space universe apply. Most recently, I watched the new Costner entry, “Let Him Go.”
These films and books fulfill their purpose just fine. However, as I fancy myself a serious blogger/writer type who could compete with those who perform on the world stage—if only I had the ambition—I often challenge myself to come up with my own take on the genre. What is my fantasy? I don’t mean, “What do I think would sell?” Or, “What do I perceive other people dream about?” No, I mean that I challenge myself to add my own fuel to the warm “good guys win” feeling that I enjoy as I see evil mother-effers reap it and good men be rewarded with beautiful, virtuous women.
Here’s the gospel truth. My fantasy centers on the children I’ve been charged by god with raising to become good men and good women.
The fiction begins with an argument. My character espouses wisdom, in a much too passionate volume. There may even be a hint of what psychologists call “contempt”. My children consistently reply with overly self-righteous bull honkey. Soon after, I kick them out of my house for crossing the line. (I haven’t resolved in which manner they cross it, whether they mindlessly repeat the slander of George Washington, Jesus, me, or one of my military buddies. But I imagine that they say something absolutely retarded and untrue and so they’ve got to go.)
Next, I imagine I resign completely from life. I become a veritable hermit.
Then the world burns.
As for me, I nimbly and deftly survive and do so in style. Eventually, others hear of an older man (they say he was a pilot, back before the Green Skies law) always staying one step ahead of the new troubles brought about by stupid young people. The Captain is suddenly whispered as if the title itself means hope.
Did you hear the latest about The Captain?
I heard The Captain has been planning something big for some time now. He’s got to be getting close.
All the while, in the hands of my children, the world burns.
But then the careful reader and viewer begin to notice new expressions on the faces of The Captain’s, by now, adult children—themselves leaders of the supposed revolution. The faces betray, finally, a wise hesitation. One might almost say the progeny appear, for the first time in their life, uncertain.
Skip to the end, and readers all rejoice as I, The Captain, am unable to outpace my children who are on their way to warn me—themselves being only one-step ahead of their pals who are coming to kill me. The reunion, made all the more compelling by the contrast between painfully slow scenes of family reconciliation and scenes of unabated, furious chase by the enemies, is only long enough for one phrase to pass.
“Father, you were right.”
Having uttered these noble words, they turn to find our mutual enemies have caught up to us. Despite our unified slaying of a significant number of them, they kill us all, saying, “Remember, orders are to kill The Captain and all of his diseased blood!”
****
Yup. It’s not family happiness that I dream about—that seems utterly hopeless in our current world. Instead, I long for vindication from the mouths of my children before I die.
Stop—Unless You’re Calling For War
I love reading. I love opinions. I couldn’t stop perusing the pundits even if I wanted to. But I am certain that the conservatives are only embarrassing themselves. If I read the word tyranny one more time, or dictator, I think I’m going to throw up. The problem we, the conservatives, face is not hard to understand.
The problem—THE PROBLEM—is that smack dab in between me and my political wishes sits the fact that I don’t want to fight a war. Nobody, no one, has yet been able to provoke me to war. I (one flag waving, freedom loving, song singing American conservative) think war in America is likely. I definitely know it’s possible. But I don’t want to do it. I wanted to do it when I was young, and I did do it. So I can speak truthfully and announce the fairly obvious, though often unsaid, observation with certitude that I don’t fight in a war now because I don’t want to. Nevertheless, I believe that war is the only political voice that the left will hear. My private inclination changes nothing.
One reason that I don’t want war is that I’m not yet able to imagine what war will look like. Will the stores still be open? And what will determine which kinds? Restaurants? What about gas stations? Why will the power company employees still show up to work but not the waitstaff? How soon will I regret the decision? These and more nag at me.
But I feel closer to the picture now than I ever have been in the past. (And I’ve even seen first world vs. Old Testament world combat.) It’s like I can begin to make out some early broad strokes. There are blurry scenes in which masked mobs will firebomb residences of their enemies, in the middle of the night. Are those lights iPhone screens? Hard to imagine people holding a camera and weapon, but maybe. It’s like I know I’m in an art gallery, but I can’t see any paintings yet. So I keep walking.
Anyhow, I’m not there yet. This is no call for war. But this is a call for them to stop. I’m talking about the conservative press, the replacement media, heck, even some articles on the Babylon Bee. Stop pretending that there is an argument to be won. Stop. It’s been two uninteresting decades of reading your veiled, dire, and dark words, forecasting a veiled, dire, and dark— but avoidable—future, written as if you really believe that your words just might save us, as if you really believe that there is a peaceful restoration of rule of law and, as importantly, use of reason.
The reason I know I’m right is, as you know, after all these years I finally read John Locke. I’m telling you that man didn’t just make sense, he didn’t just use reason, he incited war.
What have you all incited? An echo chamber? Getting 70 million people to warn each other of the dangers of tyranny in the 21st century is not exactly a formidable accomplishment. The reason I write is not to be repeated, but because no one else is telling you the truth. You’re words are not powerful. They’re not. So stop. Or do better.
How to stop? Admit when your words are empty.
Action. That’s the only path towards the goal. Admit it. Who’s gonna do it? Which one of you is going to infuse their words with power? Who’s going to incite the war? Limbaugh? Prager? Shapiro? Fast rising Candace? Na. I don’t see any guts. Plenty of ambition, brainpower, recall, and in touch lexical choices, but no guts. Address the problem.
If you’re not doing that, then you’re wasting your time. Worse—you’re lying. Because the conservative aims are bought with blood. To suggest otherwise is simply lying. There’s no way around it.
If you’re not going to make me feel, if you’re not going to make me war, then stop. You’re embarrassing yourselves.
Concluding Thought On Locke’s “Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government”
I’ve moved on to, Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver, by Jonathan Swift (known more popularly as, “Gulliver’s Travels”), but before I forget, I wanted to record my concluding thought on the infamous Locke.
It is well known that white people (nothing to do with skin color) generally—and just past playfully—ridicule black preachers (nothing to do with skin color) for their energy. “No need to get so excited. Just say what you’ve got to say and let us go home,” we comment.
I was, accordingly, surprised to hear the following critique by my black mentor after we heard a particularly rousing sermon one day, at our black church. My mentor was a retired former Navy-man who had also worked in prisons. To temper my jubilant, childlike-wonder-filled praise, he replied, “I don’t like when preachers incite. And,” he continued, “now this may just be me, but it felt like he was inciting. I used to see this kind of thing in the prisons. It’s okay to be loud and full of passion—we are talking about the Lord, mind you—but sometimes some folk cross into inciting. Remember, Pete: not everyone that’s preaching is called.”
Returning to political philosophy, my concluding thought is this. I used to think the reason we weren’t assigned John Locke anymore was because he was irrelevant, being old and clearly having rued the day. But now, after reading his essay, in full, I see our predicament differently. The reason we don’t assign each other John Locke anymore is because he is dangerous. His writing and his ideas are so powerful that you will find yourself incited to make war upon our government. Promote an essay suggesting that, anytime government prevents its citizens from bettering their lives, war is the divinely approved method to change the situation? Heavens, no! We can’t have people reading this!
I, for my part, was driving down I-35, halfway to Cabelas’ guns and ammo department (already depleted), before I remembered that I have a family and that things in my climate controlled dwelling aren’t actually that bad—even without TV.
In short, before reading Locke—and subsequently fighting the war that makes America great again—read your Bible. Best to put first things first.
One More Handle on the Pandemic
In the last such post, I offered that one handle on the pandemic was to consider that it was the result of the absolutely damnable wasted opportunity to keep our citizenry educated. (Public Schools must be abolished.) Today, I want to comment on another aspect of the uncertainty, and in so doing add a second handle.
Much like an earlier post which attempted to take a god’s eye view of white-collar managers’ all-time favorite sport of office-switching, which I wrote in order to lambast the clearly superficial effort that somehow still takes place, today we’ll similarly view the present uncertainty with a view from the sky.
To do this right, we need to spend a minute on assumptions. There are six.
1. To be a pilot you must be brave. So in a pilot’s eyes, everyone choosing to alter their lives because they might die is cowardly. When afraid, learn. Your fear will disappear with knowledge.
2. Normally, to be cowardly is thought of as weak and unmanly, but for the purposes of this thought experiment, it’s fine. Because at least we know where each other stands. And now that you’ve admitted your fear, you can overcome it.
3. We know that the virus doesn’t kill us at an alarming rate. So we shouldn’t fear contracting the virus. Got CoVid? So what? Yet we still live in fear.
4. We know the positive test result doesn’t mean we will have symptoms. Tested positive? So what? Yet we still live in fear.
5. We know that people who wear masks still test positive and still show symptoms and still die from the virus. You’re wearing a mask?! So what? Yet we still wear masks. Yet we still fear.
6. Another assumption: Something should be different today due to the timeline being different. Just like our perspective changes the higher our altitude, our understanding of the situation should be different now than it was in March. Why? We’ve had more time.
Assumptions stated. Now let’s talk.
So what’s the difference? We now know that the only real burden the pandemic places on us is that we don’t have enough hospital rooms/beds. That’s it. If there were enough hospital beds, the, ahem, leaders would have nothing to write home about. If there were enough hospital beds, we’d no longer be afraid. If there were enough hospital beds, we’d know, in precisely the same way as we do with all the other diseases we’ve been living under threat of, that if we get sick, we go to the hospital.
Now let’s imagine I’m really onto something and that we fix it. More hospital beds? Poof! Done.
Now let’s take a look at our planet from the heavens. With me? What do you see? Yup. Me too. We moved people from one place to another.
Aren’t we smart?
Aren’t we compassionate?
Aren’t we little scientists?
Aren’t we really doing it?
Here’s the thing. As I get older, I’ve been struck by the thought that you’re not older than me. You’re either the poor performing football star of high school or the poor performing partier of college. In both cases, you never learned how to read. You didn’t know what you were doing then, and you still don’t. And yet you get a thrill out of having something to do. Well, guess what? You’re still illiterate. And if you’re not reading, then you aren’t doing anything. You’re certainly not helping. You’re middle management at best.
Building a hospital bed helps stop the pandemic? I won’t have to wear a mask because we built more hospital beds? Are you serious?
You were a placeholder before the uncertainty began and you’ll be a placeholder when the uncertainty is over. Why? Who knows? Because you want to be. That’s probably why. What I’m asking is that you stop playing adult and start living as one. Life includes disease. No amount of hospital beds can fix that. Have a different fear than running out of hospital beds? Fear something besides “overburdening” the healthcare system? I’m all ears. And then I’ll help you overcome that one. For now, stop telling me what to do. You’re as stupid as you were in high school and college. I didn’t listen to you then. I won’t listen to you now.
Captain’s Log 