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It's publishing week for my first book, 'Kierkegaard's Ontology.' If you'd be so kind, please ask your library to order a copy. If you'd be even kinder, consider buying or reviewing a copy:
bloomsbury.com/us/kierkegaard…
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Casey Spinks
1.5K posts
Casey Spinks
@CaseySpinks
Gulf Coast Kierkegaardian | Postdoc @UTAustin | PhD @Baylor | MA, BA @LSU | Contributing Editor @FrontPorchRepub
Austin, TX Sumali Temmuz 2024
188 Sinusundan244 Mga Tagasunod
"such an age has invented the swiftest means of transportation & communication, has unlimited combined financial resources: how ironic that the velocity of the transportation.. & the speed of communication stand in an inverse relationship to the dilatoriness of irresolution." —SK
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"He saw the man sowing a vast field as inferior to the thug who smashes him over the back of a head with a crowbar. This is the philosophy of a loser who has fallen into despair, who is unable to achieve anything through labor but who is endow with a strong mind" —Vasily Grossman
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@ArgonGruber The point is not that one should engage in esoteric writing but esoteric reading of past texts. One should know how to read these texts well. Doing that does not require one to practice esoteric writing oneself, or to read present works esoterically.
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@CaseySpinks Esotericism is bad for society. 😭 it feeds conspiracism. Esotericism served a valued purpose in times of violent censorship. Esoteric writing was an adaptive mechanism. A free press society should minimize esotericism. 😭
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After reading Meltzer's book, I've had to flip on Strauss: It's not that he has interesting interpretations, even if you don't take esoteric reading stuff seriously. It's that you have to take the esoteric reading seriously, even if you don't make much of Strauss' own thoughts.
Alex Priou@alexpriou
I’ll never tire of saying it: Philosophic esotericism is an indisputable historical fact, and its rediscovery is an enduring, massive credit to Strauss. Either Strauss is relevant, or history of political philosophy is missing the narrative. Tertium non datur. Sorry!
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This summer at the Kierkegaard Conference in Northfield, I'm going to open with this. If the esoteric writing tradition is real, we'll have to deal with Kierkegaard's relation to it. We'll see what people think.
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@fxxfy you'd think a Nietzsche scholar would be a little more wary of ressentiment
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Thanks to @JohnFea1 for responding to my essay, Finding the Founding, in @FUSIONaier today. He shows the spirit of generosity and criticism I'd hope a historian would bring to these meditations:
fusionaier.org/2026/the-probl…
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@avrilbradley23 @Empty_America Republicans did vote for him for governor twice. The dynamics change with a Senate race but he'd easily have had a much higher chance than any other Democratic pol in the state.
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@CaseySpinks @Empty_America Right but Louisiana Democrats would be willing to vote for him. It's that he has no chance of winning because Republicans wouldn't.
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So let's imagine that I (a "legacy" Democrat) decided to run for office. I'm 45, tall, a very good public speaker, own flannel shirts, a hunter, etc.
Let's also pretend I didn't have a million insane social media posts.
They would go nuts, spend money to stop me. Why? Because I'm pro life and socially conservative.
It wouldn't matter at all if I had a good chance of winning, and would generally be willing to support a center left economic platform, such as universal health care, etc.
Jeremy Carl@realJeremyCarl
If you want to crystalize the problems Democrats are having with young White men, consider, that, to the best of my knowledge, Sarah McBride is the only White Christian Democrat man under 40 in Congress.
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@WCWohlforth @PhilKlay @nytimes Wendell Berry would later cite Kennan's speech in this essay as a model of Christian realism:
christiancentury.org/features/again…
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@WCWohlforth @PhilKlay @nytimes I have in mind particularly the Nuclear Disarmament speech he gave to Princeton Seminary, later published in The Nuclear Delusion. I find that as he aged, his counsel of restraint took an increasingly moral tone, esp. regarding ecological and technological crises.
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“A veteran of Iraq like Mr. Hegseth should know better. The enemy always gets a vote, and even after a victorious campaign, the effect of war on a population may have complex, unwanted and sometimes catastrophic consequences”
I wrote on Iran for @nytimes
nytimes.com/2026/03/22/opi…
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@PhilKlay @WCWohlforth @nytimes I'm a little surprised to see you claim that. I found the piece exemplary of realist thinking in the line of George Kennan.
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@WCWohlforth @nytimes Thank you. That makes me very happy to hear. I value realist insights but it’s not ultimately how I come at these questions.
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A fine example of Christian realist thinking in the present moment, from @PhilKlay, showcasing its two most important principles: the impossibility of control, and the necessity of moral responsibility.
Phil Klay@PhilKlay
“A veteran of Iraq like Mr. Hegseth should know better. The enemy always gets a vote, and even after a victorious campaign, the effect of war on a population may have complex, unwanted and sometimes catastrophic consequences” I wrote on Iran for @nytimes nytimes.com/2026/03/22/opi…
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@DamonLinker @SWGoldman @PhilipDBunn I don't think it can be reduced to knowledge of the problems only, however. I think Strauss (and Heidegger and Derrida) believed there are moments of genuine insight—even worthy of the name "answers". Only these are moments, they come and go, and must be repeated and not settled.
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@SWGoldman @PhilipDBunn It’s closer to Derrida and late Heidegger than most Straussians assume. Lots of useful knowledge learned along the way that can be listed, but it culminates in “knowledge of the problems, the permanent problems,” not solutions.
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I appreciate that Cowen asked the question so we could see the response, but it's difficult for me to imagine sitting across from Harvey Mansfield and saying "so how should I learn the great books? Should I ask Claude?"
mansfield book club@contrapolisci
Wanting to learn to read like a Straussian? Skip AI, read Great Books.
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@SWGoldman @DamonLinker @PhilipDBunn Strauss (and Bloom) were acknowledged influences of Eva Sedgwick.
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@DamonLinker @PhilipDBunn Starts sounding almost like Derrida at that point (Richard Tuck used to say, at least partly in jest, that Strauss was the deconstructionist of the right).
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We lamented his sullied reputation thanks to Isaiah Berlin and agreed de Mais didn't think the French monarchy was coming back and generally liked the prospects of America. Most important to know, he implored, is that de Maistre was Savoyard, not French.
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Today I asked the owner of my favorite bookshop if he had any works of Joseph de Maistre. He smiled & said that was among his favorite authors. He'd even written on him. We praised the St. Petersburg Dialogues & he wouldn't sell me his one set of the Ouvres. I love New Orleans.
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@fxxfy We ate at Joey K's last night. In hindsight, it was in your honor.
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Casey Spinks nag-retweet
New in Telos Insights: Russell Berman @RussellBermanSF on Telos's long intellectual engagement with Jürgen Habermas, from debates over the public sphere and differing political contexts to a later convergence on religion.
insights.telosinstitute.net/p/jurgen-haber…
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