Why are our Culture Wars focused upon winning battles instead of winning the war – where’s our Gen. Sherman?!
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
3w ago
“...all knowledge that is divorced from justice [must] be called cunning rather than wisdom...” — Cicero So... strategy. I'm not a big strategist myself, but I do get some of the basics. Like, the point of strategy & tactics is ultimately to win, and that using your opponent's strategy & tactics that are designed to ensure you lose, won't help you to win. Pretty basic stuff. So why do so many who are to the right of the...[what, Left? Woke? Modernists? Establishment? Ah, here's a term that entails them all:] Pro-Regressives, fail to grasp that? In our Culture War's battle of ideas to ..read more
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Have a Questionably Happy New Year!
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
3M ago
While I still have zero interest in making New Year's Resolutions, if you're one of the 67 percent of men, and 25 percent of women who'd rather give themselves painful electric shocks, than spend an uninterrupted 15 minutes of being alone with their own thoughts, without any distraction at all, I think you should not only resolve to fix that, but make sure that resolution isn't one of the 81% - 92 % of New Year's Resolutions that fail. To help with that, I'll again suggest that you begin the novel notion of getting comfortable with your own thoughts, by, wait for it: Thinking upon things wor ..read more
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The 232nd Birthday of our Bill of Rights is a weird thing to be divided over. Enjoy!
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
3M ago
232 years ago today, December 15th, 1791, our states united in ratifying the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America! How weird is it that many of the individual rights protected by these amendments as being essential to living in liberty - freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freeing religion from government interference - are what We The People are most divided over, and by, today?  We should all pay especially close attention to the preamble that I've put in bold below - IOW: if our Founders didn't trust govt led by the Founding Fathers thems ..read more
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Help to keep the horrific surprise of December 7th, 1941, in the past, by remembering Pearl Harbor Day today
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
3M ago
Remember to remember. Remember that while we're preoccupied with our concerns of the day, the worst lessons of our yesterdays - such as the unexpected attack upon us 82 years ago today - can return in an instant to consume our present. Remember that when such lessons are least expected, is always Today. Remember to remember the lack of awareness that shaped our past, so that today and tomorrow may be different for us. Remember that December 7th, 1941, dawned as just another morning, when a world of change suddenly came upon the world from out of a clear blue sky. Sometimes you need a bit of ..read more
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Enlightening the Dark Ages once again: Grammar as an Epistemology worthy of the name – You keep using that word 6
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
4M ago
We began these posts with Inigo Montoya's 'You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means' being the perfect meme for 'Epistemology', whose philosophical system bears little relation to what the word was coined to mean. As it turns out, much the same applies to Grammar. But to avoid the Inigo Montoya treatment, let's have a look at what that word is now defined to mean, which the Merriam-Webster's online dictionary has as: 1a: the study of the classes of words, their inflections (see INFLECTION sense 2), and their functions and relations in the sentence b: a study of ..read more
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Happy Thanksgiving to one and all
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
4M ago
For all my friends and family who understand the importance of talking to each other, and discussing all matters about family and friends, and religion and politics and nutrition, and who know how to disagree reasonably without becoming disagreeable - I give thanks that you are in our lives! I am thankful for the ability to make an error. I am thankful for the desire to correct it. I am thankful for living in a Nation founded upon the understanding that all Men must be free to do both, in body and soul. The Western world didn't catch on because of its answers... those are still being argu ..read more
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For Our Veterans on Veterans Day – Thank You For Persisting ‘The Harder Right’, Across Time
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
4M ago
William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903 Invictus OUT of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. Ralph Waldo Emerson ..read more
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Would you recognize it if one of your beliefs was wrong? How? – You keep using that word 5
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
5M ago
We've looked at how Metaphysics, Logic, and Ethics, support a proper 'theory of knowledge for justified belief', but what does it take to realize that what you believe is right, is actually wrong? For instance, we noted that it was once acceptable behavior in turbulent times for leading Romans to publish lists of people to be rounded up and killed for the good of the state (proscribed), whereas today those actions would not (we hope) be looked upon as examples of upstanding civic mindedness - why not? Because they didn't know any better? What do you mean by 'know'? Did they just lack the fac ..read more
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The Ethics of Epistemology – Escaping the Inigo Montoya Trap – You keep using that word 4
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
5M ago
We've looked at the misleading origins of the term 'Epistemology' in the mid 1800s, and at how the term purports to carry on the pursuit of 'meaning' that the premoderns were concerned with, even as the modernist's new '4th branch of philosophy' rejects the metaphysics and logic that any claim to meaning, is necessarily meaningless without. While modernity had been smoldering with skepticism & cynicism since at least the time of Bacon, Hobbes, and Descartes, it didn't burst out into flame until it was ignited by David Hume's declaration that we could not know the causes of anything or anyt ..read more
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Logic: Observing and deactivating the boobytraps of modernity – You keep using that word 3
St. Louis Tea Party
by Van Harvey
5M ago
The previous post reviewed the highlights of Metaphysics and noted that everyone has a philosophy, even if they are unaware of it, and that the only choice open to us is whether yours will be a confused mishmash that'll be of greater benefit to those interested in using you for their own ends, or a sound one that serves what you think is best by respecting what is real and true. The latter option requires practicing what the term 'Epistemology' was coined to mean in the mid-1880s - 'distinguishes justified belief from opinion' - rather than how that '4th branch of philosophy' (which denies tha ..read more
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