What's So Good About Nature?

“Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of Man.”—Rousseau, Emile or On Education

                                

In America today, we've become so obsessed with consumer products being "all-natural" with "no artificial ingredients." But we seem to exempt our-Self from this criteria. What does it mean for a Human Being to be natural, to fulfill the Philosopher's dream of living according to Nature?

Check out my new piece exploring these questions and more: What's So Good About Nature?.

Exoteric Exercises

Have three new pieces up over at Thought Catalog, and have been slacking on updating about them over here.

1) Why White People Appropriate Black Culture

An exploration of the history that our current debate about Multiculturalism and diversity was cultivated in—which, of course, no one knows anymore. It seems we believe today that the only way to create peace and unity is through Nihilism, through destroying the past and starting over at year zero—we saw how well that worked out during the French Revolution (or for the Khmer Rouge).

This House Is Not A Home

The early 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger, in his monumental work Being and Time, made the claim that “language is the house of Being.” What all he meant by this oblique statement I do not wish to delve into here, but the main point he was trying to make was the power of language for Human Beings. Language shapes our conception of the world by giving shape to our consciousness. And it is for this reason that I have created my Dictionopolis section to explore important words that we commonly use today when talking about the nature of reality, despite them having lost all meaning; or that we use as answers to the mystery of existence, when all they actually do is point to questions.

Today, the word I have chosen is Creativity.

The Specter of Perfection

"We have discovered happiness, say the last men, and blink thereby." — Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

                                

For the last 500ish years, we have been in what historians have dubbed “Modernity,” as opposed to the Middle Ages or Antiquity. And one of the single most powerful driving forces behind the events of History in our current period (although some speculate that we have now moved into Post-Modernity) has been the idea of Progress—that the past was flawed and that we are moving forward, linearly, toward something better.

"Conservatives" Are the True Multiculturalists

Can you believe in Science and still support Multiculturalism?

In my new piece, I explore the contradictions at the heart of Liberalism's recent push for Multiculturalism in academia and pretty much every other institution in America today. The entire point of Liberalism, as originally conceived during the Enlightenment, was to replace opinion with fact based on evidence, i.e. Science. In order to undermine the power of the church and the nobility, they sought to show that Culture is accidental, whereas Truth is universal. Yet today Liberals hold themselves up as promoters of diversity and cultural difference. But Science is trans-cultural, meaning it necessarily undermines Culture.

So does that mean by default that "Conservatives" are the true Multiculturalists?

The Forgotten Genius Who Created The Modern World

"I do not care to please either the witty or the fashionable. At all times there will be men destined to be subjugated by the opinions of their century, their country, their society . . . One must not write for such readers when one wants to live beyond one's century." — Rousseau, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences

                                

In 1750, a bashful, unassuming, "citizen of Geneva" named Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote a now scarcely remembered essay for a contest, and it completely altered the course of history. Yet despite its current obscurity, as the preface quoted above predicts, the untimeliness of the ideas contained within continue to be felt even today, 264 years later.

Timing is Everything

"The idea that is overcome is not annihilated, only driven back or subordinated." — Nietzsche

                           

So why do I call these untimely meditations?

It doesn't seem like a very good marketing strategy to write a blog which has nothing to do with what is going on in the world today. I mean, isn't the whole point of a blog to be current and engaged; to be commenting on the latest news cycle in order to drive traffic and rack up hits? It would seem that the very nature of a blog is to be as TIMELY as possible.

And the answer to all this would be, yes—that is absolutely correct.

Sowing Season

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” — Isaac Asimov

                           

The word "Philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia, meaning "love of Wisdom."

But what is Wisdom? Is it merely knowing a set of facts about the workings of the natural world—or is there some deeper level of understanding that is required to attain to this stature?