Why Weak Fools Can Dominate
The medieval fool was a powerful character. In the nineteenth century, another powerful fool, Nietzsche, emerged. They were both powerful because they both sacrificed all.
Category: Philosophy
Three Lesser-Known Figures in the Zen Tradition
Getting to know Chuang-Tzu, Lin-Chi, and Dogen's kitchen-worker friend. . . with Catholic asides.
How to Live Like a Zen Master
Zen, Christ, St. Therese Lisieux, C.S. Lewis: they all taught a similar thing. Cultivate the eyes of a child.
Five Dispositions that Can Make Your Life More Productive and Happy
The philosophy of focusing on a slow and loving existence in the quiet now
Pulling Thomas Aquinas Kicking and Screaming into the Twentieth Century
You can’t get through a Pieper book quickly any more than you can fly through poetry, or run through an art museum, or gulp fine wine. All such things …
The Reality of Fr. Damien
God is good, so to the extent something is good, it has more existence . . . it’s more “real.”
Dostoyevsky and Flannery O’Connor Reveal Something Ironic about Our Modern World
Essences become meaningless in both a perfect and marred world.
Is the New Left the Old Occult?
The supernatural and paranormal. Postmodernism and critical theory. What could be the connection?
Cell Phones, Radio, and the Philosophy of Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan's central theory is that human modes of thinking are altered by media. Media are “extensions” of ourselves, things that add themselves on to what we already are, …
Are You Trapped in the World of Total Work?
Wage work, in other words, is replaced with play work. It’s like changing from a smelly shirt into the sweat-soaked shirt you jogged in a few hours earlier.
Finding Epicurus in a Time of Immense Woe and Suffering
How will I deal with Michigan shutting down the bars on Black Wednesday?
Is the Netflix Documentary a Paean to Catholic Convert and Daily Communicant Marshall McLuhan?
The Social Dilemma uses the intellectual framework built by McLuhan, but the similarities stop there