Sunday Sermon: Nationalism Is A Lie

The first poem I learned by heart was Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” (here)

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Kipling was more succinct but less visual:
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

Sunday Sermon: The Five Modes

Sextus Empiricus’ “Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Part 1” Chapter 15:

Of the Five Modes

The later Sceptics hand down Five Modes leading to suspension, namely these: the first based on discrepancy, the second on regress ad infinitum, the third on relativity, the fourth on hypothesis, the fifth on circular reasoning.

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Sunday Sermon: In Defense Of Anarchism

This is going to be a couple of parts, but I’m going to try to tie them all together, in time. I’ve chosen a “selection plus commentary” approach for these sermons, which means I’m almost certainly going to be dropping spoilers about the future pieces of text. Since it’s philosophy, not thriller fiction, I think that’s OK.  On with the sermon:

The Conflict Between Authority and Autonomy

 

- Robert Paul Wolff

– Robert Paul Wolff

Politics is the exercise of the power of the state, or the attempt to influence that exercise. Political philosophy is therefore, strictly speaking, the philosophy of the state. If we are to determine the context of political philosophy, and whether indeed it exists, we must begin with the concept of the state.

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Sunday Sermon

What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it

Saul Alinsky

Saul Alinsky

should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

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