verily

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (22)

By in verily

Youngsters will think I’m just spinning a yarn, but back in the internet’s olden days, Google used to have a “blogsearch” function available in a drop-down menu. I used it to find numerous new sites to read, but that option, like blogs in general, went under the steamrollers of “progress.” Social media claimed eminent domain, and the picturesque country roads of the blogosphere were turned into eight-lane interstates connecting commuters to all the big-box superstores.

I’ve been exploring Kagi as a search engine, and one delightful feature they have is their “smallweb,” which functions pretty much like the old blogsearch. (I even found a disreputable slum called A Sunday of Liberty on there after a couple dozen clicks.) Seeing all those old-style blogs with their proudly-uncool graphics makes me feel like I stepped through my wardrobe — not into Narnia, but into Web 1.0, at least. It brings back the serendipity and genuine random thoughts of early web-browsing. I recommend you all give it a try.

(I should also mention that Ooh has also been helping to keep the old blogosphere spirit alive, though certain disreputable slums have been known to appear there as well, so caveat lector.)

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (20)

By in verily

It has been a brutal week, amigos. Record-setting levels of work, and an employee out with Covid until Tuesday. So, while I stare vacantly into the middle distance, trying to remember what it was like when I was capable of stringing two thoughts together, I want to encourage you to read Ed West’s Substack if you aren’t doing so already. I know, everyone and their mother has a Substack these days, and I read quite a few of them, but Ed’s is the only one to which I am an actual paid subscriber, because I don’t want to limit myself to only the free posts. If that isn’t enough to get your clicky finger twitching, well, I have read all of his “banterous short history books” and enjoyed them as well. Hell, even his Twitter feed manages to be full of interesting, dare I say uplifting, content, like a lotus flower floating above the stagnant, stinking swamp of social media. He’s a good fellow with a quintessentially dry British sense of humor, so go check it out while I return to my catatonic trance.

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (19)

By in books, philosophy, verily

Elayne Allen:

In her new book, Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living, historian Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn offers a clear-eyed diagnosis of what she considers today’s culture of therapy. “We live in an era of the aphorism and the several-step program promising to fix everything imaginable,” she writes. But without a deeper vision of what life is about, we are subject to a tyranny of selfhood. Lasch-Quinn explains, “With no vision of the good, we are lost and bereft. All our projects become self-serving.”

…In elegant prose, Lasch-Quinn encourages us to look beyond self-optimization or political activism. At some point, we must ask ourselves: What if there actually is a coherent purpose of existence? What if living is an art? Ancient philosophy, she contends, can help us navigate these questions. She surveys five ancient schools of thought—Gnosticism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism, and Platonism—for possible guidance, locating echoes of their themes in contemporary culture.

Sounds interesting. I’ve enjoyed both her and her father’s books. Well, I guess that’s my Christmas present sorted!

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (18)

By in books, foolosophy, verily

I know it’s fashionable to display a haughty contempt for algorithmic recommendations, but Amazon suggested to me what looks to be a very interesting book by Zena Hitz, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. I found one appreciative review here which I’d missed back in the summer, and, to quote another few from the publisher’s website:

“Hitz’s memoir is profoundly affecting as she describes how academic life made her lose her love of learning before, finally, she found a meaningful path.”

“[Lost in Thought is] full of wonder, full of the joyful smiles of somebody who’s been saved, or saved herself, from empty toils of ledger-sheet learning. In her good-natured way, Hitz chastises the increasing commodification of intellectual endeavor. . . . This is a book to savor in your quietest reading nook. Which is very much the point.”

“In her rich and rewarding book Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life, Professor Zena Hitz argues that the goal of education is not the status or privileges it confers upon us, or even the valuable life skills it demands that we acquire. In line with classical pagan and Christian traditions, she argues that we have a natural desire to understand the world outside of us, and that a true education carefully cultivates this natural love of learning and helps to bring it to its full maturity. . . . [A] rich, timely book, a book educators and students alike would do well to read.”

(While we’re on the theme, you should read what another guerrilla-philosopher-in-exile from the realm of Arts & Letters had to say recently.)

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (17)

By in books, jests japes jokes jollies, verily

Websites and social media accounts are evanescent things, prone to disappearing in an eyeblink, leaving no trace of their existence. Some are so obviously a product of their moment that it’s hard to imagine them having any longevity. Nonetheless, just as we can enjoy the beauty of the wild violets during their brief appearance on spring lawns, we can appreciate a Twitter account devoted to critiquing the credibility of bookcases. (You may be aware that, in this age of enforced video interaction, it has become a “thing” to sit in front of a bookshelf during your calls, to help lend an air of erudition and gravitas.) So allow me to introduce you to Bookcase Credibility. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (15)

By in montaigne, verily

Well, this is interesting. This evening, I stumbled across a site I’ve never seen before, which— oh, I’ll just get out of the way and let them explain it:

After Montaigne—a collection of twenty-four new personal essays intended as tribute— aims to correct this collective lapse of memory and introduce modern readers and writers to their stylistic forebear.

Though it’s been over four hundred years since he began writing his essays, Montaigne’s writing is still fresh, and his use of the form as a means of self-exploration in the world around him reads as innovative—even by modern standards. He is, simply put, the writer to whom all essayists are indebted. Each contributor has chosen one of Montaigne’s 107 essays and has written his/her own essay of the same title and on the same theme, using a quote from Montaigne’s essay as an epigraph. The overall effect is akin to a covers album, with each writer offering his or her own interpretation and stylistic verve to Montaigne’s themes in ways that both reinforce and challenge the French writer’s prose, ideas, and forms. Featuring a who’s who of contemporary essayists, After Montaigne offers a startling engagement with Montaigne and the essay form while also pointing the way to the genre’s potential new directions.

…This site contains all 107 of Montaigne’s essays, in Charles Cotton’s 1685 translation (John Florio produced the first English translation, in 1605, and several other twentieth-century translators have made their attempts at rendering Montaigne’s mind in English as well). We hope that you will enjoy spending time with this quirky sixteenth-century Frenchman, that by reading his essays you will find yourself pondering timeless ideas, and that in reading his essays, you will begin to create your own essays.

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (14)

By in verily

I have recently learned of two great sites which may also be of interest to you: SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE (“Are you in search of the ‘wisdom’ of the ancients, but don’t know where to begin? Are you looking for more than the locus classicus–do you long for the odd and the obscure as well? Then you’ve come to the right place!”), and Haggard Hawks (“Strange words, etymology & language facts”), whose Twitter feed is more frequently updated than the blog itself. Give them both a try.

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (12)

By in verily

Sunday and Monday were glorious — unseasonably cool temperatures in the 60s, overcast and drizzly. We spent the days hiking in the national park. Now we’ve got the first truly scorching weather of the summer, perfect for spending time in the pool. Reading about stupid people saying stupid things online has taken a reduced role as a consequence. So, until I feel truly inspired to write something, here’s some links that might be worth your time.

Andrew Orlowski, “The Great Brain Scandal”

Yeah, I have to say, this doesn’t sound all that outlandish to me anymore.

Helen Andrews, “The New Ruling Class”

Lawrence Glickman, “Everyone Was a Liberal”

Zach Weinersmith imagines Nietzschean trucks (really, though, it’s unfair to single out any one of his comics; you should just read them daily).

Likewise, David Malki on question-begging, parts 1 and 2.

Ben Sixsmith on the tiresome contrarianism of Spiked! magazine. I find them equally exasperating and stimulating, but on balance, I’m glad they exist in the media landscape.

Ed Krayewski on guns, or rather, to be specific, on empty political grandstanding, due process, and the amazing way in which people who can recite from memory a hundred reasons why the War on Drugs has been a catastrophic failure and a moral travesty can still convince themselves that a War on Guns would somehow avoid the same problems.

Sonny Bunch on “artisanship”, i.e. the culture war commissars.

The older I get, and the more time I spend online exposed to the demented screechings of damaged freaks, the more I, too, appreciate emotional continence in my friends and loved ones. (Related.)

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (10)

By in fresh hell, verily

Donald Trump is America’s collective rape fantasy. Deep down, they fully expect to settle down and spend the next several years having perfunctory relations with Hillary, but it gives them such an illicit thrill to imagine being ravished by that beastly orange man with his stubby little hands. I’m not judging anyone’s kinks here, but it is getting a little boring having to hear you moan about it countless times each day. Try a little harder to keep it private, hmm?

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (9)

By in books, race, verily

I read Thomas Chatterton Williams’s memoir, Losing My Cool, last summer and found it engrossing. I recommend checking it out, but until you do, here’s a couple more recent articles from him worth reading. One, on everybody’s least favorite buzzword, privilege:

What is more harmful — and pervasive in these disillusioned last days of the first black presidency — are the ways in which left-leaning discussions now share assumptions with the worst conservative and even white supremacist ideology. Whether put forth by racists or anti-racists, the insistence that, as James Baldwin noted, it is a person’s “categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended,” is oppressive. When genuinely anti-racist views lead us to the same practical conclusions an open bigot would embrace — that black life is miserable compared with white life — we give white people too much credit and strengthen the status quo.

The false choice between acknowledging the repugnant history of racism that informs the present, and the wish to accept the reality that a growing number of black people may nonetheless experience the freedom to define ourselves, is infantilizing. What this current moment of protest and awakening must lead us to, if it is to lead us anywhere, is a dignified means of fully inhabiting our ever more complicated identities.

And two, on everybody’s second-least favorite buzzword(s), safe spaces:

It’s a strange and ironic double diminishment: first to feel oneself aggrieved, and then to conclude that the best response is to bask in fragility and retreat into an artificially indulgent social context. There is something utterly dehumanizing about being fit to a demographic profile, reduced to the sex or color of a body. While I may not be able to control how I look or how others perceive me, I control absolutely the ways I perceive myself. The idea that minorities need bubbles betrays an internalized sense of inferiority. When we concede public space as inherently hostile instead of deliberately claiming it as our own — as Martin Luther King Jr. and so many others did in the Sixties, as the gay-rights movement did more recently — we perpetuate and reinforce some of the very biases we seek to counteract.

Just as troubling, the growing power and influence of the appeal to vulnerability transforms it from a strictly defensive (if ineffective) tool into an increasingly potent method of intimidation that can silence even meaningful disagreement.

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee (8)

By in beards, books, verily

Though there are individual exceptions, the absence of Beard is usually a sign of physical and moral weakness; and in degenerate tribes wholly without, or very deficient, there is a conscious want of manly dignity, and contentedness with a low physical, moral, and intellectual condition. Such tribes have to be sought for by the physiologist and ethnologist; the historian is never called upon to do honor to their deeds.

— Thomas S. Gowing, The Philosophy of Beards

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