We are on numerous fronts in an unprecedented and perilous situation. No government likes leaks. Sometimes leaks are illegal. This is something that can be addressed on its own. The key here is the substance of what we’re learning. It…
#The Exception
Robert Bateman: The James Mattis I Saw Behind Closed Doors – Esquire
I think I know what Mattis is trying to do by accepting this position, and it is not because he supports Mr. Trump: Mattis is sacrificing himself. He knows that this will not end well, but he’s doing it in…
Heckling Baby Hitler (Notes on a Twitter Discussion)
Would-be proponents of a liberal society would cease being liberals at all at the moment they ceased their opposition to “shutting down” discussion, and to the precise extent they did so.
Posted in Political Philosophy, The Exception Tagged with: counterfactual, Liberalism, The Exception
Short Bibliography/Postography on the Problem of Libertarian Praxis
Preliminary list supplementing a set of posts at Ordinary Times, whose publication I expect to occur shortly, and which began as a comment on the question of a “libertarian moment” in American politics – whether it ever occurred at all and whether…
man-killers
As for our Achilles-Nemesis, what reason is there to believe, along with apparently the professor, that it is our decision alone, or within anyone’s ability, to define the fight in some essentially different way, and still to fight at all?
Posted in Art, Books, Featured, Movies, notes, Political Philosophy, The Exception, War Tagged with: Iliad, Islamic State, Parthenon, sacrifice, The Exception
again as to the irrational underestimation by rationalists of the rationality of irrationalism
“The Temporary Name” points (( 226 The Temporary Name 03.22.14 at 3:26 pm In any case, any form of government seems to attract and empower the very sort of people it is supposed to suppress, and employing the pathological to…
Posted in Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Politics, Religion, The Exception Tagged with: anarchism, Liberalism, Political Theology, rationalism, Schmitt, sovereignty, The Exception
2nd Comment on “David Brooks: Better in the original German” (Schmitt and the neo-imperial moment)
(proofread version of comment at Crooked Timber) Mr. Timberman @125 [Italics in original comment], “converting freedom into political [or any kind of] obligation” appears to translate as “converting freedom into its opposite.” If I’m obligated to you and yours at…
Posted in History, Neo-Imperialism, Philosophy, War Tagged with: Fascism, Liberalism, neo-imperialism, Schmitt, Strauss, The Exception
After East Ghouta 3: Indicting the Law
To the extent we cannot construct or re-construct the principles for a collective right to life in the age of weapons of destruction of the masses and disruption of global-ecological homeostasis, those principles may be expected to construct or re-construct themselves for us, and through us.
Posted in Featured, History, International Relations, Neo-Imperialism, The Exception, War Tagged with: After East Ghouta, international law, neo-imperialism, Syria, The Exception, UN Charter, United Nations, War
No Center at the Center
The world’s chieftain cannot serve the general interest effectively and reliably unless convinced that serving the general interest also serves “his” self-interest – that the two interests are finally the same or non-severable. When the chieftain falls into a depressive state – of apathy, or aboulia, or neurasthenia; doubting all, negating itself to negate all – the system fails, and the will to stasis is realized, or hypostatized, as crisis.
Posted in Featured, History, International Relations, Neo-Imperialism, The Exception Tagged with: neo-imperialism, Political Philosophy, Political Theology, Rousseau, The Exception, United Nations
