Senior Editor, Compact Magazine
The Lack Podcast
Philosophy/Politics/Poetry
May 9, 2024 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
There's an important point made by Lasch in The True and Only Heaven that the model for the modern conception of "progress" is less the millenarian/eschatological one (albeit stripped of God), which would at least end (in apocalypse, judgement etc.)...
But rather what's striking about the modern conception of progress is that it has no end. In this sense its model is not Christianity denuded of God but rather science...
May 23, 2023 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
One of the stranger claims of the current moment is the idea that some people are denying the existence of some other people. There’s a recent example in an exchange between Holly Lawford-Smith and Vic Fielding.
For background, Lawford-Smith, a Philosophy lecturer, has suffered years of harassment and smears, was recently found by her employer, the University of Melbourne, to have no case to answer regarding any breach of discipline.
May 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This account of NatCon is closest to how it was, with all its divisions and disagreements. So many reports had a preconceived box they had to try to smash everything into, or a sneering tone they'd already decided to adopt.
Liberalism struggles with the problem of evil. If everyone gets to pick their idea of the good, and we believe that everyone's desire is positive, simply because it's "what they want," then we have no basis for telling people that some desires are not, in fact, good.
This is why we see institutions, like higher education, which should be defending truth, beauty and justice, encouraging dialogue and defending reality, even when the truth is painful, buckle under the weight of obviously antisocial, sociopathic, bullies.
