Ethan
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User ID: 2275
Ethan
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10mo ago
Though I agree that generally women look best when leaning into traditionally feminine styles, I think short hair looks pretty dang good on some girls I know.
Ethan
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9mo ago
Goggins is probably the single best human exemplar of human malleability. He's like a fascinating edge case of what happens when somebody just ... has infinite willpower.
Ethan
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9mo ago
Edward Feser's The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism is a great introduction to Thomism. It gives good Aristotelian arguments for the existence of God.
Ethan
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1mo ago
On first watch it didn't quite land with me. But now I think it's really good. The Cameo joke was great, and it's better when you realize that James (the one bullying Charlie) was the one who sent it.
Ethan
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8mo ago
I'm very quick to judge music based on, like, the first minute. I don't think that's unreasonable as a song's beginning sets the tone for pretty much the whole thing.
Ethan
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8mo ago
I think the recommendation is to drink enough to loosen your inhibitions. Not enough to get drunk.
Ethan
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8mo ago
Putt putt is classic, if a little cheesy. But I think that can be worked to your advantage.
Ethan
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8mo ago
I'd be interested. Will there be one topic per month on which members write their pieces? Or do members get full discretion on what to write about every time?
Ethan
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10mo ago
That's a shame, I enjoyed the first animated Spider-Man and I was thinking of seeing that one. Life's just been too busy lately.
Beyond the Spiderverse, which is the sequel to the animated one, is pretty damn good.
Ethan
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9mo ago
I'm not familiar with this guy but I think the obvious solution is to never, under any circumstances, apologize for sins against the Left. I'm reminded of the scene from Darkest Hour where Churchill, referring to peace talks with Hitler, yells "you cannot reason with a tiger when your head is stuck in its mouth!" The Left -- that is, the mass of men and women who are in control of nearly every relevant channel of Western power and influence -- aren't interested in conversation. They're interested in grinding their enemies under heel. They are the tiger, and even the most well-meaning attempts of conservatives to roll over and play the deferential gentleman get them eaten. But oh, how very gracefully those posh conservatives bowed their heads and accepted martyrdom! It won't achieve anything. The Christians with whom I stand should model themselves after the crusaders. More Richard the Lionheart and less Thomas a Kempis.
Rightists do change their beliefs like any honest person. They should be candid about that. But these changes should be framed as intellectual corrections or, at worst, correcting youthful intemperance. Never, ever, should they use Leftist semiotics (saying, "I commit to doing better," or "I apologize for my past hurtful words" is self-immolation). In other words, if you're being accused of right-wing dogwhistling then you're doing it right. Either way the Left hates the Right. They should make themselves worth the hatred.
If all that seems too rigid, then know I think these rules necessary guardrails against the conservative inclination to seek compromise. That leads to the "speed-limit conservatism" of the National Review crowd. Those people exemplify the chief problem with conservatism. The problem isn't a lack of clear policy goals or manifestos or books about the glories of Western civilization. Books are dead when their words don't fill the chests of men. The problem is that conservatives are old and bloodless. Bronze Age Pervert's book isn't a sane or articulate political project. It voices a spirit which moves and animates everything else. The actual content of the book is all performative insanity -- nobody would seriously consider comparing Mitt Romney to Alcibiades unless they're joshing around. BAP is a full-on thought-criminal who attracts just the people he needs to attract: serious young men with spines who are looking to armor themselves for the eventual crackdown their overlords will visit upon them. These men don't need another thought-piece about changing the Leftist orthodoxy from within. They need to find communities of other, understanding men with whom to build themselves against the world.
If it seems like I'm not addressing your main question, then know that's partly because I'm not familiar with Hanania (though it looks like I should be!). The best option you present appears to be #3: ignore what's going on. Not because he's ashamed or looking for approval, but because it isn't worth his time to explain himself. His silence is the answer. Eventually he might be forced to address the issue. Then he should just be honest about why he's changed his views, using parameters similar to what I outlined above. Avoiding an apologetic tone is crucial. The very young men the dissident right appeals to will sniff that stuff out as weakness, and deservedly so.
Ethan
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11mo ago
The implicit associations of the "homo" are intentional. It doesn't just conjure ideas of cultural homogenization, but of specifically Left-coded cultural homogenization. It's sort of like the (now very dated) slander "fake and gay." And the word "globohomo" smacks of 4channer slang. Its prickly, yet unstated, associations should be embraced.
Ethan
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1d ago
Why not just solve the related problems? Do practice exercises until you perform well consistently.
Ethan
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9mo ago
Just started Frank: The Making of a Legend by James Kaplan, about Frank Sinatra. It's the first biography of a celebrity I've read with any attention. I think I hold some deep feeling that musicians' lives aren't as worthwhile to learn about as geniuses in science or philosophy or politics. But Frank Sinatra was a kind of genius, and his life is pretty interesting so far. Also, Kaplan is a good writer and sometimes I read the prose aloud to feel it on my tongue. I think it sharpens me in some way to feel how good writing conforms to the breath.
I'm also reading Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. Good Western so far -- it kind of seems like Red Dead Redemption 2 is to video games what Lonesome Dove is to novels: longform, epic Westerns which are modern but don't treat the genre's tropes with contempt. Really, come to think of it, the Western seems to be the one genre which is allowed to have some dignity against the eviscerations of postmodernism. Occasionally you'll get a flat-out anti-western like No Country for Old Men. But then you'll get really good modern takes on the genre which incorporate the spirit of the best while modernizing the trappings of the story, like Breaking Bad or that Wolverine movie Logan.
I finished The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. It was good, but I suspect it shouldn't have been my first McCarthy novel. Yes, it may well exemplify his sparse prose the best. But I feel like even though Blood Meridian is a lot longer it seems to have more in the way of action. Maybe when my docket is free I'll try it out.
Ethan
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9mo ago
Sometimes I'll play music when writing. But if the music has lyrics I prefer to listen to it when the writing is not labor-intensive -- more like the initial, stream-of-consciousness stuff that goes into the first draft of an essay. But instrumental music, like classical, goes with doing anything.
Ethan
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9mo ago
The Summa is a big 'un and unless you seriously mean to delve into mediaeval logic and theology, better to just look up particular queries in it (e.g. what did Aquinas say about X?)
On the other hand, a good introduction to Thomism would help clear up a lot of the confusion a modern person would have going into Aquinas. Edward Feser is a good contemporary Catholic philosopher whose books are very illuminating.
For a broader book on medieval thought, Etienne Gilson's Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages is tough to beat.
Ethan
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10mo ago
My pet theory falls in line with option 2. I'm expecting some writeup on Substack or Reddit wherein he "exposes" a den of rightwingers.
Ethan
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4d ago
That's the price for entry in reading Dostoyevsky. It requires a suspension of disbelief when characters go on impossibly long monologues while other characters listen with impossible patience.
Ethan
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1mo ago
If you say you can't function in the morning without coffee people will act understanding, if not sympathetic. Say the same thing about booze and people will start giving you pamphlets.
You mentioned the relative severity of alcohol, but I think it's good and natural to treat addictions with greater or lesser severity based on their risks. I mean, how much concern would you want people to have if you tell them that you're crabby and irritable without coffee?
I think a more apt comparison might be made to nicotine, cigarettes specifically. Of course cigarettes, too, are more dangerous than coffee. But nicotine withdrawal won't literally kill you like alcohol withdrawal can. And if someone says "don't talk to me until I have my cigarette," everybody sees that this is a problem. But there won't be any pamphlets handed out. It's pretty clear that our responses to addiction run on a gradient. As they should.
Ethan
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5mo ago
Batman: Arkham City is identical to RDR2 in this regard after Batman is poisoned. The only side mission which organically makes sense for Batman to prioritize is the Mad Hatter one, because it's predicated on Hatter tricking Bruce with a fake cure. But then it doesn't make sense if you wait till after the main storyline is done to complete the mission, because Bruce is already cured.
Ethan
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9mo ago
It's a shame because I liked both Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. Speaker for the Dead, the sequel to Ender's Game, I remember reading when I was younger -- too young, I think, to understand much of it. I believe I gave up on the Ender series after Xenocide.
As for the sequel to Ender's Shadow, called Shadow of the Hegemon, I was hopeless to comprehend it. I remember it being nearly entirely about the various machinations of warring states, masses of soldiers led from here to there, what this genius kid might be thinking at this time, etc.. It lacked so much of the human drama which made the initial novels good.
Ethan
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10mo ago
Breaking Bad is our modern civilizational epic. Better Call Saul is a prequel which is just as good.
I always thought if there were a novelization of Breaking Bad the full title would be "Breaking Bad: or, the Modern Ozymandias" due to its obvious literary associations.
Not even a gay couple walking in the background? Strange.
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