It’s Different

Tom: Capital punishment is stupid. You can’t prove killing is wrong by killing.

Harry: How do propose kidnappers should be punished?

Tom: They should be put in prison.

Harry: Doesn’t putting someone in jail seem a lot like kidnapping to you?

Tom: No. Why?

Harry: I mean, sending someone to jail for kidnapping means you’re forcibly taking someone and locking them up as punishment for forcibly taking someone and locking them up.

Tom: It’s different.

Harry: Totally.

In Defense Of Skipping The Introduction

“Nine times out of ten, knowing “where the author is coming from” is simply leverage for dismissing all the stickiest, most confrontational claims the author makes. “Where the author is coming from” means that none of his claims about truth is objective or transcendent but materially connected with his experience. All of his assertions and claims invariably arise from demographics. The introduction offers information on the author’s race, income, upbringing, religion, thus readers can tie whatever they don’t like in the book to something external to it. Of course Jane Austen says that—she’s white. Of course Eugene Vodolazkin says that—he’s Orthodox. Of course Cormac McCarthy says that—he’s actually quite rich. Well, of course you say ‘Of course’—you’re a Marxist. I guess two can play that game.”

-from my latest for CiRCE

2020 (As It Looks From 2022)

“Revolutions are carried out in order to change the ownership of property and the names of streets. The revolutionary who seeks to change ‘man’s condition’ ends up being shot for being a counter-revolutionary.”

― Nicolás Gómez Dávila