Tag: society
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Dieting and moralizing
Diets have always been as much about a philosophy and a kind of cult culture (in the general sense, not the religious sense) as they have been about actual food. Go all the way back to the days of the ancient Greeks and you find all sorts of crazy diets and theories about how they…
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A cut tangent from the entry about Untamed
The movie musical Rent does something similar. It has a song where the male singer, Roger, is clearly in the wrong and needs to change. The music becomes discordant when he sings, the style he uses is very harsh, the framing portrays him as separated and confined and in shadow. The girl, Miami, is free,…
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Speculation about the content of Untamed
I haven’t read the book Untamed, and in order to criticize something you should definitely read it. I’m just not sure I want to spend my time on it. But a quick glance offered me enough insight that I think I could get at a lot of its major take-home points. A book like that…
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The shifting strategy of socialism
If nationalism has some basis in racial solidarity, in the identity of the tribe (the French, Germans, Italians, for example), might it not make sense to infer that tribalism is itself part of the reason socialism can’t seem to cohere on a broader international basis? And if that’s an obstacle to the Marxist dream, then…
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An addendum to “meaning in life”
Life, of course, isn’t all about survival, any more than it is all about ambition or pleasure. But all of these are components of our lives. If there’s one peoole that we can learn something about finding meaning in the midst of uncertainly of survival from, it’s the Jews. It’s amazing that they are still…
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Meaning in life
Meaning in life isn’t a function of how big and grand and special and unique a thing you’re doing, and what that makes of you. Meaning in life is a function of taking responsibility for and investing in the life you have, and what that makes of you. We can’t all be Shakespeare or Kanye…
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Why we need the noble savage
We must believe in the myth of the noble savage. It is this story, this mythology, that allows us to maintain the great fiction that guards and preserves the deep psychological needs of our hearts. There is something deep inside us that it protects, a different story, a nagging doubt, a yawning void, that it…
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Birth of the goddess
Spicy meatball warning. Offensive, personal, not at all polite or correct. Prepare for some shocking imagery. I believe it to be necessary to really adrress this subject honestly and unblinkingly. The unvarnished reality of it. I know that in some ways I’m violating my own points I made in my entry about Cuties. There are…
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Response to the Dark Horse podcast
Here is the relevant clip. This is actually just a transcript of a comment I posted on that video. https://youtu.be/JZ_MEX0vtRE I just read a whole book on this subject called Cheap Sex. In which it is argued by a sex researcher that the economics of sex have shifted so that the cost of it, and…
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Are friends family too?
There an interesting cultural narrative I’ve long noticed but never commented on. The identification of friends as family (or family substitutes). Obviously, the narrative of lonely, lost, and dislocated people finding a home has a long history. Even the ancient story of Ruth from the Bible runs along these lines, although she substitutes an actual…
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