Category Archives: Belief

A Game of Consequences…

Posted on September 30, 2015 by bsixsmith

Right wingers think they are too nice and so the left always wins. Left wingers think they are too nice and so the right always wins. In part this is due to our belief that the ingroup is pure and … Continue reading →

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Revolutionaries and Reactionaries…

Posted on August 2, 2015 by bsixsmith

Each committed liberal and each committed socialist should be at least something of a revolutionary. Mannered as such good people might be in their reformism, so extensive are the coercive restraints and traditional norms or hierarchical systems of power and … Continue reading →

Posted in Belief, Conservatism | 1 Comment

On the Perils of Being an Intellectual Outlaw…

Posted on July 28, 2015 by bsixsmith

I still like Christopher Hitchens. No, really, I do, and I say that despite disagreeing with almost all of his opinions: the one-size-fits-all liberal internationalism; the reckless interventionism; the dogmatic atheism and the socialist nostalgia. I say that despite disliking … Continue reading →

Posted in Behaviour, Belief, Ideology | 1 Comment

Captive Minds…

Posted on July 24, 2015 by bsixsmith

How do intelligent men learn to love stupidity? How do artists come to appreciate barbarism? These questions troubled Czesław Miłosz as he wrote The Captive Mind. A Polish poet, in exile for his dissident stance, he wanted to explore the … Continue reading →

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Utopian Cynicism…

Posted on July 20, 2015 by bsixsmith

Utopians might be characterised as men and women of an essentially optimistic nature. It can be so. Yet in some people the desire for paradise emerges from a great annoyance and even hatred towards the imperfect nature of the present. … Continue reading →

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Varieties of Narcissism…

Posted on July 19, 2015 by bsixsmith

Self-hatred is not humility; it is, in fact, a cousin of self-love as both are descended from self-obsession. Rather than being exceptionally great one is exceptionally bad. Neither assertion, in most cases, is a true one. This has political as … Continue reading →

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On “Seeing Through”…

Posted on July 9, 2015 by bsixsmith

Imagine two people so benighted as to think that a window was a painting. If another person realised that the objects it displayed were not created out of paint they would be smart enough to have “seen through” this delusion, … Continue reading →

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Nightmares of an Eminent Person…

Posted on July 1, 2015 by bsixsmith

Ray Monk’s biography of Bertrand Russell’s later life, The Ghosts of Madness, is among the most depressing books that I have ever read. For readers who think of Russell as the twinkly grandfather of liberal humanism it will come as … Continue reading →

Posted in Behaviour, Belief, Family, From the Archives, Rationalism, Reviews | 1 Comment

On Intellectual Perversity…

Posted on June 2, 2015 by bsixsmith

Ours is an age in which a measure of social status has been attached to intellectual perversity – that is, the desire or compulsion to oppose what is orthodox in the world of ideas. Enlightenment philosophes challenged the bishops and … Continue reading →

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Ideology and LARPing…

Posted on May 26, 2015 by bsixsmith

Live action role-playing is a curious phenomenon that sees people dress up as fictional characters and replicate their behaviour. LARPs can involve hundreds of people at a time: firing airsoft guns, improvising speeches and escaping the general mundanity of their … Continue reading →

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