"Blessed is he who knows the causes of things." (Vergil) "A difficulty is a light. An insurmountable difficulty is a sun." (Valéry)
Back on my bardo bullshit.
Joined April 2009
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hubris (hyoo͞′brĭs), n.
Overbearing pride, presumption or arrogance (originally toward the gods).
This is also Strauss' assessment.
Briefly: H's deconstruction of _Wesensschau_ (from Aristotle to Husserl) left him unable to mount any moral objection to the _Zeitgeist_, since once you give this up there is nolonger any absolute frame of reference for critique of politics.
In this sense the moral lesson of Heidegger is a caricature of the general trend of modern philosophy since Machiavelli: if you give up on knowledge of natural invariants, you give up on the idea of natural right, and therefore any standard of judgement of political regimes.
"Your action of pressing a button produces an effect that aligns perfectly with your will, because your will has been channeled into the spare, binary affordances provided by the buttons: press or don't press."
Philosophy as we know it originally defined itself in opposition to sophistry. Sophistry is the placing of thought at the service of politics and passion: the invention of persuasive but false rationales for doing what people want to do for ulterior reasons--philosophy corrupted.
Plato shows us that the final victory of philosophy in this contest is both improbable and monstrous; history and good sense tells us that the final victory of politics means the death of what is noblest in the human spirit.
Therefore, they must remain in dialectical tension.
And for the same reason, the perfection of intellect is assimilation to absolute power (=natural necessity) -- which is the one thing worthy of worship, anything less being idolatry.
Matthew Benjamin retweeted
Crypto is spending more on lobbying than the entire American military industrial complex. That should tell you how desperate they are to get their hands on public money and to secure a future bailout package when crypto all implodes.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Matthew Benjamin retweeted
1/7
Germany's massive trade surpluses were a burden for Europe and the world because they represented the externalization of domestic demand deficiencies, but the fact that they have come down so sharply isn't a good thing.
ft.com/content/6f325773-bf8a…
This is a kind of digest of what most great political thinkers have said for aeons concerning the materials we have to work with. Perennially relevant.
xahlee.org/wordy/p/russell-l…
Parenthood update:
The kid just recently turned 2, and has already figured out that she can get out of doing things by pretending to be sick.
I'm not even mad, I'm _terrified_.
