Our politics is what we call the violence we wish to visit on our fellows and lack the strength and courage to undertake personally: a neatly-bound, clearly-labeled package of all our worst impulses.
Feb 242021
Being
Identity, that spectator of what he calls himself,
That net and aggregate of energies in transient combination.
—Cunningham
Feb 092021
The good are not holy, and the holy are not good.
Feb 032021
If you must have the last word, it’s because you need it, and if you need it, it won’t help.
Jan 292021
Humans, though naturally curious, are also highly trainable, and when we are punished often enough for noticing something we will eventually refrain.
Jan 212021
To fend for oneself in a high civilization demands a certain cognitive minimum; when too many lack it the civilization lowers itself to meet them, and the process is hastened by letting them vote.
Jan 012021
Compared with virtue, all vice is harmless.
Dec 282020
Competitions in oppression produce, by definition, sore winners.
Dec 232020
Eyes glazing over is two metaphors in one: the faraway look for what one cannot understand differs from the thin film for what one does not want to hear.
Dec 182020
To alleviate boredom men will do literally anything.
Dec 172020
We first have nothing but time, then everything but time, then nothing but time, then time’s up.