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4. Exhortation
Something I wrestle with a lot, often to the point of exhausted inaction, is communication. The problem when you’re dealing with ideas like Being-with-a-capital-B, the transcendent, etc. is precisely the capital B, the fact of transcendence. The transcendent, by definition, transcends us. It can’t be captured in words, concepts, and the like, because if it […]
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3. Genesis 1-4
One of the many, potentially fool-hardy and doomed to failure, projects I’ve given to myself in the recent past is a reading of the whole of the Bible. Currently, I’m lost somewhere at the tail end of Exodus, unable to find the time each day to devote to the project (the time is there, it’s […]
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2. Existence
“I exist” is unique and indubitable, there is no possible rival belief. On top of this, we seem compelled to believe that others exist as well. We claim, at least some claim, we can doubt* this, but can we? We go on speaking regardless. More, what is the self without other selves? We come to […]
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1. Writing Challenge
“Do something, or do nothing at all. Do ardently whatever you decide to do; do it with your might; and let the whole of your activity be a series of vigorous fresh starts. Half-work, which is half-rest, is good neither for rest nor for work.” – A.G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life I tell myself, over […]
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The Failure of Technology, pt. 2
I could excuse my recent lack of posting by claiming a lack of time, but that would be a lie. I can only, and even then in the vaguest terms, note that I’m undergoing a crisis of expression and purpose that has sapped my desire to write, at least to write in this form in […]
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Clarification
I got a bit lost in my explorations in the previous post and feel like I didn’t fully explain what Jünger was getting at with his talk of automatons. The point is that in sin, in vice, man illegitimately subordinates the higher to the lower, disrupts the cosmic order. We desire some thing, some good which […]
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Why We Fight
Before continuing my now-continuously delayed exploration of The Failure of Technology, I wanted to take a moment to delve into the quote from Ernst Jünger I cited in the last post: During World War I we confronted the question of whether man was more powerful than machines. In the meantime, things have gotten more complex. We […]
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The Failure of Technology, Pt. 1
The original German title is Die Perfektion der Technik, or The Perfection of Technology. “Perfection” here carries with it the sense of “fulfillment,” without the positive connotations we associate with the perfection in English, hence why the translator substituted failure. And failure is justified because, Jünger argues, it is in its perfection that technology fails, though […]
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Book Notes V
The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire by A. Wess Mitchell (B) – Pretty much exactly what it says in the title. An interesting book, though assuredly far, far more interesting for someone who was more into strategy in general or had more basic familiarity with 18th and 19th century European politics than I, who […]
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Be Humble
We ought to judge the infinite power of Nature with more reverence and a greater recognition of our own ignorance and weakness. How many improbable things there are which have been testified to by people worth of our trust: if we cannot be convinced we should at least remain in suspense. To condemn them as […]
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Dan Yingst 