Here’s a different analogy, meant to be a little closer to the truth than the last one. Imagine a tough neighborhood, say in the Bronx. The police are all on permanent holiday. Chaos ensues — rioting, looting, etc. — but eventually a few gangs emerge as dominant, and one in particular is truly Dominant. They… Continue reading

I have been reading Tom Barnett’s latest book, Blueprint for Action (see his blog here). He is much more hawkish than I have been, but then again knows a helluva lot more than I do about the international situation. It’s forced me to try to educate myself a little bit about foreign policy matters —… Continue reading

I’m pleased to report that Understanding Rationalism is now in the top 409,000 in sales at amazon.com! Woo-hoo! When will the movie be out?! Continue reading

I have been looking for a site that provides meaty information about Presidential candidates’ views, and this might be it. You can see the voting records and summaries of remarks made by each candidate on various issues. Be sure to scroll toward the bottom of each candidate’s page, since there is a useful summary of… Continue reading

The Nz book is coming along. I have a draft of the “Overture,” which is an overview of his life and philosophy; a draft of “Act I,” which is about the misty romantic metaphysics lying being Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Meditations — roughly, the idea is that Greek drama and Wagnerian opera both have… Continue reading

Once there was a man in a forest with a hammer, nails, and 23 pieces of lumber. The forest was thick and it was hard to see through it. So he started hammering some of the lumber onto a nearby tree, and made a ladder. He used up all 23 pieces, and wasn’t very far… Continue reading

Here is an interesting review of a book which links up to the question of culture. Apparently, the book claims that academics in cultural studies have brought a kind of “democracy” to the study of culture, which is good in some ways, since no one is likely to get excluded, but bad in some ways,… Continue reading

Mike asked about my view regarding Nz’s view toward other people. (Or “the Other” as some people like to say, but I’m not sure what that means if it doesn’t means “other people”). So here goes. Biographically, Nz wasn’t always a loner. He had a small circle of friends in high school, joined a fraternity… Continue reading

Here is a link to a long and excellent essay about the different worlds of professor and student of today. The first couple paragraphs set the stage: At the beginning of school last fall, I ran into a student on the University of Virginia Lawn, not far from the famous statue of Homer instructing an… Continue reading

Lately I’ve been working on a chapter on what I’d call “Act 1” in Nz’s life, in which he attempted to bring about a “cultural revolution” of sorts. To motivate the question, I felt I had to begin by examining culture more intuitively, before seeing the heavy burden Nz was to place upon it. Here… Continue reading