Some people and organizations feel they have to make a choice between idealism and dry pragmatism. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one of them is the false equivalency of idealistic behavior and ideological behavior. To be idealistic is to strive for the good, the just, the beautiful. Idealists aim for a better…
Tag: value
Irrational and Negligent
What’s wrong with your intellectual opponents? One of the most popular answers is that they’re “stupid and evil.” Most of the thinkers I respect go out of their way to disavow this facile answer. Indeed, most of the thinkers I respect go out of their way to praise their opponents’ intelligence and virtue. They don’t merely opine, “We can disagree without being disagreeable.” They put those who disagree with them on a pedestal. My respect notwithstanding, this seems odd. If your opponents are so great, why are they still your opponents?
“Avengers: Infinity War” Is A Cosmic Battle of Individualism vs. Collectivism
Thanos’ collectivism expresses itself in a backwards view of the world which many viewers may not immediately catch on to. Despite the film’s scenes on the devastated and once-populated Titan (which attempt to make Thanos’ mission seem sympathetic and reasonable) there are literally zero cases where eliminating half of a population by genocide improves productivity and wellbeing for the other half.
Touchy-Feely Racism
When someone tells you to “stay in your lane”, or told Rosa Parks to sit in the back of the bus, it’s a slap in the face. An insult. And it was pure racism. Don’t put up with it. Your “race” has nothing to do with your rights or your value as a human being.
The Boring Truth About How To Get People To Do Things
Patience persuasion relies on two extraordinarily mundane and dirt-cheap things – reminders and time. Of course, this all assumes that you have a good reason to want someone to do something, and that you have clearly articulated how it is in their best interest to also do that thing. Don’t skimp here.
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.
75 Times Around the Sun
Yesterday I observed the 25th Anniversary of my 50th birthday. On the original occasion, I opined that, like Merle Haggard, I could say “my life’s been grand!” I said at the time that I had lived a great half-century, therefore no matter what happened to me after that I could say that most of my life had been grand. The facts of the matter are that the continuing quarter-century has been even grander.
Makes for Very Poor Relationships
I think one huge problem adults have with interacting with kids (teenagers especially) nowadays is that they try to make their relationship some idealized thing. They like to be active in the kids lives, show interest in them, have a certain degree of closeness, and actualize their investment into the relationship they have wanted. Often, the kids don’t want this.
Know Thyself, Sell Thyself
It takes a lot of work to discover these things about yourself, and it’s never really done. You can’t do it just with books or thinking either. You’ve gotta try stuff and put yourself in contexts that provide feedback. You keep trying anything that you don’t absolutely hate, and then seeing how much it pays in knowledge, growth, fun, or money.
Know Your Statists
They are all the same, in that they believe governing others to be legitimate, but although I have said a statist is a statist, and “left” and “right” are not relevant, there are times it helps to know how the statist sees itself.