Smith-Ruiu, On Drugs
"Human beings are the animals that have to do things they don't actually have to do. The name we use to describe these things is culture."
Topic
Briefly
A collection of 248 issues
The Five Parts of Existence Strikes Back and The Hemisphere Hypothesis
Part I
What is the Tao? The Tao, also called “the act of existence (actus essendi),” “the first principle of Zen,” and the region on the other side of Aldous Huxley’s doors of perception, is the nameless reality that is logically, conceptually, and in reality prior to everything else.
Why the Left Hemisphere is Ineluctably Drawn to Abstractions
The left hemisphere’s primary goal is to allow its host to survive. Practical considerations drive the left hemisphere.
You might think this means the left hemisphere isn’t much interested in abstractions or idealized notions. Such things, at first glance, aren’t practical. But the thing is, abstractions are
The Left Hemisphere Deranges People Out of the Local, Driving Them Through Rationalism into the Clutches of Ideology, including Nationalism
The community is embodied existence: you rub against the white trash and the petty; you rub against flawed humans like yourself. You have to deal with it . . . in reality, not in a rational idea. When you escape it through abstraction, you become the anti-Mother Teresa
Preparing for Catholicism's Preeminent Role in the West after Democracy Collapses?
Kevin Vallier's analysis of Patrick Deneen's newfound Statism in this podcast episode is really interesting.
Deneen wrote Why Liberalism Failed. It got a lot of press, especially after Obama included it on his 2018 reading list. Obama liked his insights but disagreed with Deneen's
Thomas Sowell's Hemispheres
My first attempt to flush out the phenom that is Thomas Sowell
Celebrating the Overlooked
I appreciate any effort to rescue the neglected noble: those little things that are good but nobody notices. It could be a person, it could be a garden.
The Dorothy Parker and Florence King Reincarnate
But she's going on maternity leave
"No Amount of Alcohol is Good for You--That Much is Clear"
The idea that moderate drinking is healthy has been debunked . . . currently
Capitalism and Communism are Flipsides of the Same Coin?
Rod Dreher calls Niall Ferguson's first column for The Free Press a "banger" and he's right.
Ferguson highlights an alarming number of similarities between the last years of the Soviet Union and the United States today. Does it mean the United States is reaching