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John Holbo Profile picture
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25 Jun, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Gonna lose followers if I keep Pantheismusstreitundpessimismusstreittweeting. OK, something to help you out. These days kids - boys - love dinosaurs and Pokemon, right? But in the not-so-distant past it was all Spinoza. Every 7-year old boy was obsessed with God-Nature.
Hence, collectible cards. (I think there were 50 in all, in the series. Here are just the first four. Sadly, I don't have a complete set, but if you like and retweet I might 'find' a few more.) I hope this gives a more intuitive sense of the stakes.

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More from @jholbo1

John Holbo Profile picture
24 Jun
Eduard von Hartmann is the craziest right-wing reactionary ever. His book was a huge bestseller, setting off decades of back-and-forth polemics. He was basically selling trickle-down nihilism. Say what you will, it’s an ethos.
I forgot to give the source. The passages are from Beiser: "Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900". books.google.com.sg/books/about/We…
I am struck by the similarities between German Kulturkampf and US Kulturkampf. The 19th Century, in German culture, is bookended by 'Streits' - the Pantheismusstreit and the Pessimismusstreit. They have, seemingly, a unsuitably abstract, metaphysicalized character.
Read 12 tweets
John Holbo Profile picture
20 Jun
Alarming developments like these need to be conjoined with the legalist stylings peddled by partisan R pundits these days Take Andrew C. McCarthy. 1/ nytimes.com/2021/06/19/us/…
He is the quintessential (Jonathan Haidtian) elephant rider. He's a lawyer-pundit; he argues on behalf of the GOP, best he can. He's made little adjustments over the months to not get too cross-wise with this difficult client, while doing as much as he can on its behalf. 2/
Way back on 1/17 the maximalist position McCarthy thought he could stake, without being laughed out of court, was that 1/6 was an 'insurrection' - duh - but it is deporably impolitic of D's to make that fact the, ahem, 'gravamen'. 3/ nationalreview.com/2021/01/the-tr… Image
Read 19 tweets
John Holbo Profile picture
18 Jun
One idea I think should get some traction in contemporary debates, but doesn't seem to get mentioned, as such, is the so-called 'Just World Hypothesis', or 'Just World Fallacy'. 1/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-worl…
It's the cognitive bias that insists roughly everything (around here) is almost just as it is. A lot of these anti-CRT legislation efforts are basically attempts to legislate this, making it illegal to teach history in a manner that does not express & inculcate this bias. 2/
It's quite clear what forces pull on its behalf. The legitimacy of existing political/social/cultural authority may test on it, implicitly. So basic social/political stability may seem to require it. 3/
Read 6 tweets
John Holbo Profile picture
10 Jun
Houdini said that no one could be considered a magician without mastering the cups & ball. That is, can you always make it be that the ball is under the OTHER cup. Anti-CRT is similar close-up sleight of hand, True Scotsman-style. The True Scotsman is always under the other cup.
So then, when the mark picks the wrong cup you lift it up in triumph. 'You just did a 'no true Scotsman'! Shame, fallacy! Why won't you argue straight?'
But seriously, the one thing that these folks cannot dare examine openly, for then the gig is up, is the likely relationship between two things: 1) some fairly abstruse academic writings; 2) a lot of people alleging, angrily, there are systemic injustices that need addressing.
Read 18 tweets
John Holbo Profile picture
10 Jun
Trump will be remembered as the man who destroyed the GOP's inhibitions.
It's all like a bitter parody of a very American sub-genre: the holy fool in politics. Americans like stories about idiots, without a head for politics, who somehow wander close to the heart of the action, thereby transforming it by sheer Forrest Gumption.
Trump is that tale come true in reverse: the unholy fool. A man with no understanding or even interest in politics, yet a seething cauldron of resentments, bullying instincts - a monster from the id. He has taught R's a naive life lesson just by walking, simply, among them:
Read 4 tweets
John Holbo Profile picture
9 Jun
A couple days ago someone - sorry, forget who - was making fun of this Josh Hammer piece because it's written kinda funny. He misuses words in a flourish-y way. (The opening 'herewith' is a clunker.) 1/ papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
But one thing he does that I've always meant to comment on is gripe about the Anthony Kennedy line that gripes conservatives. “The right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” From "Casey". 2/
Usually the complaint is that Kennedy is being too agnostic. Hammer - possibly already thinking ahead to how is going to misuse 'eponymous' in the next sentence - blames it for being gnostic. (But relativist!) 3/
Read 11 tweets

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