I think it’s helpful to look at how the “new” jobs of today reflect the same archetypal social roles played out in the legends we love. Humans and human institutions may change in form, but they do not change at heart.
Tag: rulers
On Coming to Grips with the Nature of the State
That so many intellectuals talk about the state as if it were a sort of garden-party amusement, rather than the cold, merciless killing and plundering machine that it really is, now puzzles me. I don’t think the disconnect between the ivory-tower conceptions and the reality of the state springs so much from the philosophers and political scientists having prostituted themselves to the state as it springs from these thinkers’ not getting out more—or, barring actual first-hand involvement in the relevant realms, from their failure to learn more realistic history.
America Needs More Robin Hoods
Robin Hood is a model of an ethical outlaw. He broke bad laws by doing what was right for the right reasons. His story has been misrepresented. In the original tellings he didn’t “rob from the rich and give to the poor,” but took back property that had been stolen through taxation and returned it to its rightful owners.
Advice to My Children, and Everyone Else
I’ve given this entire learning experience some thought over the last few days, and the following stanza sums up my principles nicely: Don’t hurt people. Don’t take their stuff. Don’t ask permission. This is the advice I will be giving and reinforcing in my children as opportunity arises, and its advice I give to the rest of humanity. Let’s dig deeper.
Psychology Goes Toe-To-Toe With Totalitarianism in Carl Jung’s “The Undiscovered Self”
To most of us living in the 21st century, it’s easy to forget that weapons exist which could easily destroy life on the planet a few times over. Jung was not ignorant of that. What’s more, he was living through a time when that kind of warfare seemed likely. The world had just lived through the destruction of two world wars, the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism and National Socialism, and the Holocaust. In 1957, it was not certain that Communism would not spread over the whole world.
Economic Nationalism: Elitism in Populist Clothing
My old friend and former “American Conservative” editor Dan McCarthy gets it all wrong about Donald Trump’s “national security” tariffs on aluminum and steel.
What is Voluntaryism?
I was, in fact, challenged as to “What is a voluntaryist?” I will, from time to time, read a piece, in the SIG for Writers to which I belong, where I will claim to be a “voluntaryist.” Although curiosity will kill the cat, someone decided to query how and why I was using the word, “voluntaryist.”
“Peace Through Strength” Is a Racket
“I’m going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody — absolutely nobody — is gonna to mess with us,” Trump says. On other occasions he’s said similar things: “We want to defer, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength” (same link) and, a year ago, “Nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody. It will be one of the greatest military build-ups in American history.”
The Transition from Slavery to Freedom
I sometimes hear people, including freedom advocates, pondering how society might “transition” from an authoritarian system to a stateless society. The implication is that there could be some sort of gradual, peaceful phasing in of freedom, and a phasing out of governmental controls. But that is not how things works, and not how things will ever work.
Partitions II — Catalonia
The aristocracies of some lands will pretend to the determination of lands other than their current domain. Therefore, historically, what are now France and Spain presumed that it was natural to use Catalonia for ulterior motives.