State of the Culture
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…that when someone describes himself as an ethicist you should run away? Especially if he refers to "the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality." "expert in practical ethics" indeed.
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Here's some actual testimony in support of my view that people do see in Rand's novels something much less sinister than is exhibited in her philosophy as a whole. Following are excerpts from the comments thread on this CNN story, which itself is a pretty conventional view. Just to make it clear: I think Rand's…
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A few months ago I posted something about the curious and (I think) inconsistent affection some Christians have for Ayn Rand. My conjecture was: I’ve suspected that what they, the Christians, do is to separate Rand’s economic ideas from her metaphysics. They read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead and are thrilled by the achievements of the heroes, and filled…
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An ignorant man who is not fool enough to meddle with his clock, is however sufficiently confident to think he can safely take to pieces, and put together at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance and complexity, composed of far other wheels, and springs, and balances, and counteracting and co-operating powers. Men…
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Here's another old Sunday Night Journal (January 22, 2006) that seems worth re-reading. Perhaps people will be more likely to read it if I say it's about sex.
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On my way to work this morning I passed the Chick-fil-a restaurant located not very far from where I work. I don't usually notice it, but today I made a point of looking to see if it seemed busier than usual. I'd been to the dentist and so was getting to work later than usual,…
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I had thought I would write a brief post about this interview with Yale computer scientist and cultural critic David Gelernter, but have been too busy, and that's likely to continue through tomorrow, so I think I'll just throw it out for discussion. This is another of those things, like the Heather King piece I…
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At Least It's Out In the Open Now There are several immediately obvious things to say about the declarations this week by the mayors of Boston and Chicago that they would attempt to block the Chick-fil-a (what a silly name) fast food chain from opening restaurants in their cities. First and most obvious is their…
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Thanks to Janet Cupo for pointing out this post to me. I don’t agree with everything she says, and obviously working “for a better world,” as the saying goes, is a good thing to do, indeed an obligatory thing to do for Christians, but nowadays that tends to be defined as political activism and debate.…
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The New Testament speaks terrible things about something translated as "the world." Again and again we hear of it as a society of liars and killers, of brainwashed and arrogant men who parrot the gibberish and lurch into the snares set for them by demonic powers. The resulting picture is of a great, roaring machine…
Light On Dark Water 