classics digests, reflections and reviews
Tyranny vs. Democracy A united force is more efficacious in producing its effect than a force which is scattered or divided. … Therefore, just as it is more useful for a force operating for a good to be more united, in order that it may work good more effectively, so a force operating for evil is more harmful when it is one than when it is divided. … for the […]
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Preface To paraphrase Plato, the price we pay for indifference to reason is to be ruled by unreasonable people. On a personal level, I seek to understand the laws that affect or govern my life. If I cannot understand the laws, but am forced to abide by them, I’m no different from a slave; On a societal level, true democracy depends on reason. A democratic society is healthy only so […]
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Having grown up as an atheist, I used to treat all religious practices with contempt. Even after my conversion to theism, rituals and liturgy have remained alien to me, partly by choice, partly due to circumstances. My experience and understanding of Christianity have been mostly on the intellectual level. In this regard, Prof. Hurtado made a significant impact on me, as he piqued my interest in the lives of the […]
Read moreIn the past few years, I’ve written many posts lamenting the defeat of reason and the rise of tyranny in our time. The inevitable consequence of these is the demise of justice. So I hope my readers would forgive me if, in my pessimistic and cynical frame of mind, I’m not terribly enthused about the current protests for social justice: I tend to think of the phenomenon not as a […]
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Government officials around the world have been telling the public that their response to the pandemic is “guided by science”, and that they rely on their scientist-advisors regarding which public health measures to put in place. Most people have abided by these measures, which have effectively slowed the spread of the virus, and prevented a collapse of our healthcare system. The truth is, however, that science never guides. It may […]
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COVID-19 and Capitalism The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production and with them the whole relations of society. Everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. Man is at last compelled to face soberly, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. In Manifesto of the Communist Party written almost two centuries ago, […]
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LXXXIV: On Gathering and Digesting Ideas We ought to copy these bees, and sift whatever we have gathered from a varied course of reading, for such things are better preserved if they are kept separate ; then, by applying the supervising care with which our nature has endowed us,—in other words, our natural gifts,—we should so blend those several flavours into one delicious compound that, even though it betrays its […]
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