Philosophy – Blogs Don't Burn

November 25, 2022November 28, 2023

Stray Thoughts: The ‘Ultimate Fidelity’

Note: The title art for this post is ‘Ouroborous, Cosmic Loveheart’ by Silvana D. You can see more of her work on Etsy.

A few posts ago, I tried to illustrate the profoundly dark mindset that human beings can fall into during the most extreme moments of suffering and resentment. This attitude, which I associate with the ‘extinction-drive’ (the yearning to put an end to life itself in the face of overwhelming suffering), can be captured in a single term: Invidia Fati. Literally meaning the ‘hatred of fate’, this life-negating maxim has been a major motivator in countless acts of death, destruction, and mayhem throughout human history.

In essence, it is nihilism-turned-activism; the result of a process by which evil is perversely elevated to the status of the Highest Good. Faced with a world too painful to endure, some poor wretches become genuinely convinced that the only solution to the problem of life is to tear the whole damn thing down and stamp it into oblivion. ‘Burn down the circus, kill all the clowns, and end the great cosmic joke forever’. This is the cynical, even genocidal impulse which motivates such characters.

September 22, 2022

The Stoic Lens: Rudyard Kipling’s If

If by Rudyard Kipling is one of those seminal works of Victorian-era stoicism that never gets old no matter how many times I read it.

Perhaps it’s the lyrical, chant-like structure of the text – in combination with its powerful, prosaic language – which makes it so magnetic? Or maybe the philosophical content of Kipling’s poem is the major invisible hook? After all, If remains one of the most concise and profound illustrations of ‘big S’ Stoicism that I’ve come across in literature. (Regular readers will be painfully aware of my own obsession with that School…)

April 26, 2022

Death and Nostalgia in How Green Was My Valley

In the final pages of Richard Lewellyn`s rural Welsh masterpiece How Green Was My Valley, we get this beautiful passage on life, death, and loss, which should resonate with anyone who has ever felt a pang of nostalgia for days gone by:

“An age of goodness I knew, and badness too, mind, but more of good than bad, I will swear. At least we knew good food, and good work, and goodness in men and women. But you have gone now, all of you, that were so beautiful when you were quick with life. Yet not gone, for you are still a living truth inside my mind, So how are you dead, my brothers and sisters, and all of you, when you live with me as surely as I live myself?

May 13, 2021May 13, 2021

The Inner Court: From Self-Esteem to Self-Justice

In response to a recent post on a Stoicism-related Facebook group – which I will not reproduce here for the sake of the author`s anonymity – I put forward an analogy intended to help the user cope with an intense habit of self-criticism that was causing him much distress. As someone who is in the 97^th percentile for trait neuroticism (according to Jordan Peterson`s Understand Yourself personality test, in any case) this is a problem I often struggle with myself. If you are also prone to a degree of neuroticism it is likely that you will be all-too-familiar with this tendency.

That voice which whispers nasty things about you into your inner ear can be truly insidious. Many people only experience this when they are feeling particularly low, though for some poor souls it is the Rule, rather than the exception, of their entire lives. A common response to such continuous self-recrimination is to drown it out with noise and distraction. Drugs and alcohol are a favourite method here, as is excessive mental stimulation through the overuse of porn and video games. These methods all produce a dulling effect for the inner voice, thus offering much-needed relief. However, these methods are temporary at best, and only ever serve to stave off the inevitable. This is because, no matter how long the binge goes on, we always end up alone with only ‘Me-and-Myself’ for company.

January 19, 2021March 10, 2021

Nietzsche and Norse Mythology: Illustrating the Death of God

Background: This article was originally written in 2020 as part of a master’s degree. I have decided to post it here as I think many of the themes addressed are applicable to my last post (concerning the so-called ‘extinction-drive’ within Man). I also want to clear up much of the confusion surrounding Nietzsche’s famous announcement that “God is dead”; which has become one of the most famous – and most misunderstood – lines in all of philosophy. As you will see, this was no triumphant declaration of an atheist happy that the God of the Bible had finally (if you’ll excuse the phrase) met his Maker. Indeed, Nietzsche’s cryptic statement is far more complex than most realize – being simultaneously a hopeful reflection and dire warning about the slow decline of religion in the West.

This is discussed below in what I hope are clear and accessible terms. The analogy I draw between Nietzsche’s theory and the Norse creation myth is also intended to clarify rather than complicate. (It was also an excuse to talk a little about Norse mythology – for that particular interest I have only Dr Jackson Crawford to thank).

January 11, 2021November 27, 2023

Stray Thoughts: The ‘Extinction-Drive’

There are minor spoilers for HBO`s True Detective (season 1) in this article

What is it about human beings that makes us occasionally yearn for the end? Not in the sense of the individual who considers suicide – that is a whole other kettle of fish that I don’t want to get into here. What I’m referring to is that part of human nature which actively wishes for the Final Moment of Man; a great finale where all the deeds of the past are collated, the sinful are separated from the righteous, and the peoples of the Earth are judged. This might resemble something like an ‘end of history’ moment: the culmination of an abstract historical process in the establishment of a Utopia. Equally, it could be more like the Christian Second Coming; whereby human rule is superseded by the direct governance of a divine power. Whether secular or religious, these ideas seem to flow from the same basic impulse: the see the life we are living now – and the world which plays host to it – ultimately replaced by a more perfect alternative.

The defining characteristic of this drive rests in man’s yearning to witness his own end. To see the vagaries and sufferings of mortal life finally wiped clean – and with it all the burdensome responsibility that accompanies human freedom – to be replaced by something more permanent, fixed, and complete. Through the jettisoning of a painful present, it is hoped that a more perfect future will emerge. This has been the dearest wish of many throughout human history, and it has taken on many different guises. Indeed, the history of the 20th century showed the destructive power of such ideologies in full force, illustrated by the unholy triad of Soviet Communism, Nazism and Maoism. However, the subject of this article is not Utopianism or Millenarianism, but rather an often overlooked and misunderstood variant of this impulse.

October 27, 2019January 9, 2021

“Winning the War of Ideas”: Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris and Douglas Murray in Conversation at the O2 Arena

Backlog: this review was written shortly after the live event on 16th July 2018 at the London 02 Arena, which I attended.

A couple of years ago, it would have been unthinkable that the O2 would host an event bearing more similarity to a lecture than a rock concert. It would be a further leap of implausibility, then, to imagine such an event drawing in almost eight thousand people, with a queue of not-just-university types stretching all the way out of the door. The event consisted of three men, on stage, simply talking – a format which is bound to have raised a few eyebrows at the O2 planning department! As Sam Harris joked, “It is especially flattering to us that Justin Bieber isn’t coming out to perform in the middle of this.”

Jordan Peterson has expressed a similar amazement at his own meteoric rise to fame. Going from a largely unknown Canadian Psychology Professor at the University of Toronto two years ago, he has since become one of the most well-known and sought after public intellectuals on the planet. Peterson can be seen everywhere; on national television, podcasts, public debates, YouTube channels, radio shows and more. His biggest UK feature so far has been the (now infamous) Channel 4 interview with Cathy Newman, which went viral after their heated exchange led to much online ridicule for Channel 4.