Eastern Dionysus

The OJ trial could be safely televised, the George Zimmerman trial could be safely televised, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial could be safely televised, but not this case of a young black male stabbing a white boy in the heart at a track meet for no apparent reason other than murderous rage. Got it.

'The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the great wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made his writings an inexhaustible mine of suggestion.' – A. N. Whitehead (PR)

The entire American leftist project has been centered around transposing class consciousness onto race and gender for well over a decade now. We know this because we've been told by lefties themselves constantly. It's not up for debate anymore. You made the damn sandwich.

I'll be honest - I didn't think they were capable of conceiving of something like this in the 18th century

“The easiest man to frighten is the one who believes that everything ends when his fleeting existence comes to an end. The new slave traders understand this well, and it is on this belief that the importance of materialist doctrines rests.” — Ernst Jünger

The year is 1950. Your doctor lights a cigarette and tells you smoking is fine. He read it in a study. He is telling the truth about having read it. He does not know, or is not saying, that the study was funded by the tobacco industry. The year is 1958. Your doctor tells you to eat less fat. The evidence is contested. The contestation is not in the public messaging. The food industry has been helpful in clarifying which findings deserve attention. Some researchers who published contradictory data have been quietly defunded. Ancel Keys is on the cover of Time magazine. The year is 1962. Your doctor prescribes thalidomide to your pregnant wife for morning sickness. It has been approved. The FDA gave it the green light in Europe. Twelve thousand children will be born with severe limb malformations before anyone in an official capacity acknowledges the problem. The families are told the drug was safe. The drug was approved. Both of these things remain true. The year is 1972. Your doctor prescribes Valium. Britain is in the grip of a benzodiazepine wave that will last two decades. The dependency risk is known internally. It is not shared. Your doctor is not lying to you. He was not told either. The year is 1999. Your doctor prescribes Vioxx for your arthritis. It is newer than ibuprofen, well-tolerated, and Merck has a study showing it works. Merck also has internal data suggesting it roughly doubles the risk of heart attack. This data will not reach your doctor for four more years. Fifty thousand people are estimated to have died in the interim. Merck eventually settles for 4.85 billion dollars. No criminal charges are brought. The year is 2002. Your doctor prescribes OxyContin. Purdue Pharma trained its sales representatives to tell doctors the addiction risk was less than one percent. That figure came from a letter, not a study. The letter was about patients with terminal cancer on short-term doses in hospital settings. Your doctor is a GP with a patient who has a bad back. Nobody draws a distinction. Nobody is required to. The year is 2008. Your doctor checks your cholesterol. Your LDL is elevated. You are prescribed a statin. Nobody mentions that the number needed to treat for primary prevention is approximately 250. Nobody mentions that the muscle deterioration you'll notice over the next two years is listed as a rare side effect rather than a documented pattern affecting a meaningful percentage of patients. The trial that informed the prescription was funded by the manufacturer. Now it is today. Your doctor has new guidelines. New studies. New consensus. He is confident. He has always been confident. The confidence has never been the problem. The confidence is, in fact, precisely the problem.

This is the face of what is destroying Western civilization.

You must read Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies. It's not a social novel per se but depicts perverse, painful, and shocking situations with a wit and cheerfulness that seem to have vanished altogether from contemporary culture. The decisive moments recall what Nietzsche wrote about drinking everything down to the dregs (Daybreak 321). The main character in the opening novel does everything he can to avoid the longhouse and ends up meeting the devil. "One always learns one's mystery at the price of one's innocence."

The best novels about social life I know are Sentimental Education by Flaubert, Bel Ami by Maupassant, Forbidden Colors by Mishima and Red and the Black by Stendhal; also incidentally the best novels on women. Any similar suggestions? Pls only at comparable skill level…

Imre Makovecz church designs, Hungary

Review of Project Hail Mary: a rare bright spot in the blighted night sky that is Hollywood

Reverse Camp of the Saints where anglos will cherish your oak door

Eurydice to Orpheus by Robert Browning BUT give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow! Let them once more absorb me! One look now Will lap me round for ever, not to pass Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond: Hold me but safe again within the bond Of one immortal look! All woe that was, Forgotten, and all terror that may be, Defied, — no past is mine, no future: look at me! Painting by Frederic Leighton

Literally no one in human history has had nearly as cosseted a material existence or as politically indulged and feted a social status as college educated young white women in the West — but they are miserable for it! Something to think about.

The demons work through thoughts. St. Anthony the Great—a man who spent decades in the desert face-to-face with demons—spoke of this directly: 'The demons have no power over us by themselves. They merely suggest thoughts to us—nothing more.'  What was he thinking? He refers not to the thought itself, but to the first impulse—a spark. Have you ever noticed this? You are calm, and then suddenly, for no reason, a feeling of frustration toward a loved one arises. Or a heavy, unnecessary gloom descends like a fog; or you suddenly want to say something offensive, and the words are already on the tip of your tongue." Abba Dorotheos of Gaza described Eight Generic Logismoi (tempting thoughts): 1. Gluttony (gastrimargia): Excessive focus on food/drink. 2. Lust (porneia): Sexual immorality or delusional thoughts. 3. Avarice (philargyria): Attachment to money/possessions. 4. Sadness (lype): Grief arising from unsatisfied desires. 5. Anger (orge): Malice or rage. 6. Acedia (akedia): Spiritual listlessness, the "noonday demon". 7. Vainglory (kenodoxia): Seeking human praise. 8. Pride (hyperephania): Self-exaltation and separation from God. Eight doors and at each door someone is waiting for us when we open it. Abba Evagree spoke not of sins, but of thoughts, of the first movement, because sin does not begin when we have done evil, but the moment we held on to a thought, we accepted it, we began to consider it. Abba Dorotheos of Gaza explains it this way: In the beginning, a thought comes. This is not yet a sin. Then we start talking to him, this is already a danger. Then we agree, this is already a defeat. Three steps. Every single time. No exceptions. And the amazing thing is that this is exactly what is described in the Gospel, in the story of Christ's temptations in the desert. The devil did not force Christ with force, but offered, throwing away the thought: Turn stones into bread because you are hungry - this is reasonable. Throw yourself down, angels will catch you, that will prove your faith. Bow down and ye shall receive all the earthly kingdom of the world - this is effective. Every time - a reasonable argument, every time - logic, and every time Christ responded with the word of God. Not with your own reasonings, but with the Word. This is a lesson for each of us. But here arises the question that is more important than it seems: If the devils only throw our thoughts at us, then they do not know what is inside us, then they act blindly? Pay attention here, because the answer to this question explains a lot of things in your life..

Of Nobel Prize winners in the 20th century, here are the percentages of atheists/agnostics by prize: Literature (35%), Medicine (8.9%), Chemistry (7.1%), Economics (5.2%), Physics (4.7%), and Peace (3.6%). For the outstandingly talented religious faith and reason seem to coexist.

The gods of humor have abandoned the United States. Since the 1960s, American humor has been the most powerful form of humor - the laughter and mockery that the American culture industry directed against religion, tradition, and anything that took itself seriously were vital to spreading the idea that it was high status to be liberal. The solvents of liberalism are at their most potent in the form of jokes and satire. But now, another power has taken away the mantle conferred by laughter. This reversal constitutes nothing less than a civilizational shift, an upheaval in the symbolic balance of power. The US, by becoming Clown World, has made itself into the joke, so that its own jokes can no longer land.

This was something that the serpent whispered to Eve.

On Orban, say what you will about his 16-year tenure, but he deserves credit for not blowing the legitimacy of his populist movement on an ill-advised military campaign after 10 years of inconsistent domestic reform efforts. This alone puts him above the LARPers like Mussolini.

The heart of the problem of how Christian charity has been perverted into a justification or indifference to sin, wickedness, and corruption: people have lost contact with the evil within themselves, and pathologized it -- they believe they can live without evil, which is energy and the source of all action as such. The irony is that if you wish to do genuine and lasting good, you must not only recognize your capacity for darkness, but also actively embrace it. Without the dark side, nothing consequential can ever get done.

I haven't read the book by Mahoney, but I think Girard would take issue with what I think is the heart of the problem -- people have lost contact with the evil within them, and pathologized it -- they believe they can live without evil, which is energy and the source of all action as such. The irony is that if you wish to do genuine and lasting good, you must not only recognize your capacity for darkness, but also actively embrace it. Without the dark side, nothing consequential can ever get done.

@gaddafistyle Noted!

A book is waiting to be written about how the concept of Christian charity has become corrupted, impoverished and de-spiritualised in the modern era, such that it now means simply open borders and LGBT rights. Seems to me this development is part of the end of transcendence that Baudrillard wrote of.