Seems about right

http://coreyrobin.com/2017/02/04/what-if-trump-turns-out-to-be/#comment-141857

Roquentin February 5, 2017 at 12:15 am | #

I’ve arrived at the conclusion that by and large Trump supporter don’t really give a shit about what he does. The whole thing runs on spite. The thought process of the average Trump supporter goes “Making the liberals squirm = good.” That’s as far as most of them think it through. This is why the big figures on the alt-right are self-professed trolls like Milo Yiannapoulos. That’s the main animus behind 4chan’s /pol/ board. Anything to get a rise out of the SJWs. Peel away the malice and these people have very few ideas, and the ideas they do have are stupid. But this is also their strength. Trump could literally deliver on none of his promises so long as they knows it hurts the people they can’t stand. The GOP could desert him, most of them never liked Trump to start with, which will be all the more reason to blame Trump’s problems on the political establishment rather than the man himself.

Trying to make this about Roe v. Wade, Obamacare, or The Wall is still playing yesterday’s game. It almost gives the face of modern conservatism too much credit. The troll is the present face of conservatism. Short on ideas of any kind and long on petty, malicious antagonism. These people don’t want anything done. They feel like losers and the thought that anyone else is winning drives them insane. They want to piss in the punchbowl and ruin the party so everyone else goes home as miserable as them. That is what we are dealing with.

“Roquentin” (nice Sartrean allusion) seems about right to me. His comments come from a conversation found here.

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Going to have to read Zweig

In his memoir, Zweig did not excuse himself or his intellectual peers for failing early on to reckon with Hitler’s significance. “The few among writers who had taken the trouble to read Hitler’s book, ridiculed the bombast of his stilted prose instead of occupying themselves with his program,” he wrote. They took him neither seriously nor literally. Even into the nineteen-thirties, “the big democratic newspapers, instead of warning their readers, reassured them day by day, that the movement . . . would inevitably collapse in no time.” Prideful of their own higher learning and cultivation, the intellectual classes could not absorb the idea that, thanks to “invisible wire-pullers”—the self-interested groups and individuals who believed they could manipulate the charismatic maverick for their own gain—this uneducated “beer-hall agitator” had already amassed vast support. After all, Germany was a state where the law rested on a firm foundation, where a majority in parliament was opposed to Hitler, and where every citizen believed that “his liberty and equal rights were secured by the solemnly affirmed constitution.”

Read more at the New Yorker.

You are Charlie Hebdo

Wow! Judging from my Facebook stream, yesterday everybody was Charlie Hebdo. Today, nobody is Charlie Hebdo. Today’s line goes like this: “These  killings were terrible, of course. But those cartoons were disgusting! They are racist, sexist, anti-religious, and generally obnoxious. I cannot associate myself with that.” But the “that” that we were associating ourselves with yesterday was not the content – most people didn’t know the content, I’m sure – but the freedom to express your opinion, whatever it might be, without fear of being murdered for it. Back-pedaling today suggests you think that maybe just a little bit they had it coming. 

In this world, with those kind of people in it, if you have a view at all, you are Charlie Hebdo to someone.

A Call to Action

Zombies of the world, undie!

Orphan Black

Are you watching this show? We’ve just started…about 4 episodes into season 1. Amazing! I think this will be the first time an actress wins best actress and best supporting actress for the same show.

I could watch it all night, if I weren’t so tired out from teaching.

It is one awesome show!

Markdown

I had been hoping to be able to use Markdown to compose my posts. It is a fast and easy way to format text for the web. The more I use it, the faster I get, and the more likely I will be to post more frequently.

It is very good to get organized!

TheWeek.com: 7 ideas from ancient thinkers that will improve your modern life

TheWeek.com: 7 ideas from ancient thinkers that will improve your modern life. http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwl9yyqR8

Does Philosophy Take a Vacation?

The question is whether philosophy ever takes a vacation. The philosopher can go on holiday, of course…or can he/she? Is there ever such a thing as a break from philosophy?

Here I am on vacation, and I think not…

P.s., the above claim is highly ambiguous.

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The Unexamined Life

Your Peripatetic Prattler with his latest protege:

Mubarak Gone – A Win for the People?

Democracy protests bring down Egypt’s Mubarak – Yahoo! News:

Sure hope so…Is the military the people?  We’ll stay tuned….