"Don’t Look 'Stack In Anger" Edition
Hello,
Obligatory shilling. I wrote for The Critic about “trads” and errors of conservative argumentation. I wrote for the Washington Examiner about the rise and fall of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Finally, I wrote for UnHerd about the Joe Rogan and Spotify scandal.
I wrote for my Substack subscribers about laughter and meaning. I love writing for my Substack subscribers. I can write about whatever I want - as long as I think other people might be interested - and I have written about everything from hot button issues like COVID and Ukraine, to literary subjects like Conrad and Betjeman, to random subjects like drill rap, identity, hangovers, Elevatorgate, rhetoric, brain damage, IRL streaming and my office. But I want to have more people reading these pieces! So for today only
I am offering a 25% discount
on annual subscriptions. Folks, you simply cannot find a deal like this on any other Substack written by a Poland-based commentator called Ben. Join me!
Con-troversy. You’re probably sick of seeing the names “Joe” and “Rogan” - and I get it - but - shit - I’ve listened to the guy for what feels like half my life so I can’t help myself. Having failed to get him sacked for hosting anti-vaxxers (or, at least, anti-COVID vaxxers) his enemies in the media decided to attack him with a video that compiled instances of his use of the n-word.
Put aside the absolutely blatant opportunism of attacking Rogan for something unrelated to the initial complaints (like a bitter relative bringing up age-old grievances to try and win an argument). Rogan used the n-word in relaying instances of other people using it. So, it wasn’t, “He’s an X.” It was, “He said X.” This is a cancellable offence? Seriously?
No, not seriously. No one is interested in Joe Rogan using the n-word as part of anecdotes. It is a pretext - shamelessly designed to take down someone who had been successful outside of the media machine.
Culture desert. Matthew Dean considers Chinese students of Strauss:
He warned that China, if it embraces Western modernity, could become a “culture desert” of the sort described by Eliot. The idea that the modern, not the ancient, West has problems from which China should distance itself has become a throughline in Gan’s work since his return.
One hates to ask but will this lead to Chinese neocons?
Sacred cows. A firestorm erupted across Twitter last week as left-critical posters uncovered interviews with the philosopher Stephen Kershnar in which he questioned whether adult-child sexual relationships were immoral. The assumption that he was an ultra-woke progressive was undermined when they discovered that Kershnar has also defended torture, sexual discrimination and “Asian romantic preference”. Basically, Kershnar defends the indefensible. He has devoted his career to butchering sacred cows.
I can’t help admiring the courage that it takes to do this. Plus, of course, sometimes a sacred cow must be killed. But instincts towards breeding them exist for a reason. “Debating” an issue such as child abuse strikes me as obscene for the same reason one would be disgusted to “debate” the value of the life of a loved one, by which I mean it strikes me viscerally but also that putting some things on the table seems dangerous in itself. Yet I’m sure some people feel that about things I think should be debated. How to square this? I’m not sure.
Not the big one. Freddie deBoer ponders COVID and the downfall of left-wing crisisism:
Then Covid came and, for a brief moment they convinced themselves that it was the big one at last, and everything was possible. Now they are forced to confront the fact that the system is more powerful even than a pandemic, and that no disaster is coming to save us from our miseries.
Prison works. Does prison work? It depends on what you mean by work. A detailed post by the Anonymous Mugwump argues that long prison sentences are ineffective when it comes to deterrence but effective when it comes to incapacitation. Of course, this is relevant to dangerous criminals. No one should be jailed for years in case they shoplift. But there are lot of dangerous criminals who are freed too soon.
A fruit bowl. Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie writes a beautiful piece about leading the funeral of the man who saved his life:
My life in Christ began in a fruit bowl, but my earthly life continued because of Dr Gibson, and to commend him to the hope of eternal life was a great privilege and a blessing.
A corrupt mind? Thomas Nagel’s LRB review of two books about major female philosophers contains this quote from Anscombe, which is relevant to my discussion of Kershnar:
Anscombe joins Foot in attacking the alleged gulf between facts and values, but also condemns the abandonment by modern philosophers of the absolute prohibition on certain actions that forms an essential part of the Hebrew-Christian ethic. Here is her most famous sentence: ‘If someone really thinks, in advance, that it is open to question whether such an action as procuring the judicial execution of the innocent should be quite excluded from consideration – I do not want to argue with him; he shows a corrupt mind.’
Of course, agreeing with Anscombe might open the door to heavier implications than one might like to admit.
Have a lovely week,
Ben