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Triumph of the Kooks: America Deserves Trump

“You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” That is what William F. Buckley, firebrand conservative of what used to be the American Right said to his son, Christopher, many years ago. Christopher included that quote as part of his justification for endorsing then Senator Barack Obama which was part of the reason I voted that way back in 2008 . Obama's opponent, Senator John McCain, who I respected and actually supported for a time in 2000, chose Sarah Palin to be the VP for his ticket and I just could not go along with that. Palin had no knowledge of anything, no experience to qualify her for any Federal position. McCain was trying to appeal to disaffected conservatives in order to outdraw Obama at the polls. But, at that time, Obama was the Democrat's Trump as far as a thriving base goes. McCain lost his bet to out-poll a phenomenon and in the process, through Palin and enabling many others like her, he unleashed the path to 2010&#
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Global Warming As "The Long Defeat"

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Art by Gemini AI.   The previous article in Psyche critiqued the reliance of human beings on narrative to navigate life, calling for us to break our stories down into “perspectives.”  This recent article in Noēma by Pamela Swanigan appears to offer relevance to narrative in the contemporary world with respect of global warming. Marvelously entitled “It's Time To Give Up Hope For A Better Climate And Get Heroic,” the article argues that traditional hope-based rhetoric around climate change and environmental issues is failing to motivate action, and proposes adopting J.R.R. Tolkien's concept of "the long defeat" as a more effective framework. In doing so, the author absolutely focuses on a perspective, making this in one sense a great example of what the previous article calls for. “The long defeat” certainly has narrative characteristics but it is more so a singular point of view of a much larger narrative Tolkien is telling in his great tale beyond our consider
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Psyche: Your Life Is Not A Story

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Artwork by Gemini AI.   I recently read an absorbing article in Psyche entitled "Your life is not a story: why narrative thinking holds you back" by Karen Simecek, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick, UK. In it she explores the pervasive nature of narratives in our lives and argues that while narratives help us make sense of the world, they can also be limiting and potentially harmful. I want to summarize this fascinating article and then engage in some speculation it inspired in me. Simecek begins by acknowledging the ubiquity of narratives (stories) and their role in helping us understand the world and make life more meaningful. She references philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre and Peter Goldie, who argue that narratives are fundamental to our experiences and understanding of emotions. It is difficult to argue against the obvious historical fact that human beings are storytellers and storytelling and narrative construction is central to
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Reading Kundera's Immortality

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My first edition hardback from 1991. Something remarkable happens at the beginning of Milan Kundera's novel, Immortality . The narrator (who is Kundera himself, omnipotent yet personified at this moment) is watching an older woman take swimming lessons at a health club. He is sitting distantly in some bleachers. The woman turns and waves to her instructor as she walks away at the end of her session. That wave immediately transfixes Kundera. It is a gesture made by an older woman but it makes her seem decades younger. This almost mediocre observation brings the novel's primary protagonist, Agnes, to life in the author's mind. From there, she inhabits the primary story within the novel's paralleling narratives. The gesture by some random middle-aged woman that he did not know inspires Kundera's entire story. I don't know of another novel that begins this way. It is probably not an original approach. Someone else is bound to have pulled it off. Nevert
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