Tag: philosophy

We are the Elendilans

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe contemplates the possibility that JRR Tolkien is the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe of our Aenean Age.

The defining conflict of Elendil’s era, the Second Age of Middle Earth, is fought by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. The Last Alliance is a coalition of the remnants of great powers, united in the aftermath of Númenor’s fall to resist the rising darkness of Sauron. After decades of brutal struggle, The Last Alliance of Elves and Men achieves its purpose: Sauron is defeated and the One Ring is taken from him. Yet the victory is bittersweet. Elendil falls in battle and his sword Narsil shattered. His son Isildur chooses to keep rather destroy the One Ring, ensuring that the seeds of future conflict are sown. The Elves, diminished by their sacrifice, begin their long retreat into the West, and the kingdoms of Men, though triumphant, are fractured and weakened. Thus begins the Third Age.

Tolkien’s Third Age is marked by many moments of heroism and beauty, but even at its height it is a shadow of the glorious Second Age. By the time of The Lord of the Rings, the Elves have faded, Númenor has become a memory, Arnor has been conquered, and Gondor has been reduced to a pale reflection of its former strength.

If what was true of Middle-Earth is true of our own era, then what lies ahead is neither the dawn of a golden age or the night of a dark age, but rather a long twilight—an era where the remnants of greatness, having averted or avoided total annihilation, nevertheless must struggle to resist an ever-encroaching darkness at great cost. The civilization, while noble, will bear terrible scars from this struggle. Its grandeur will be tempered by humility and its ambitions will be limited by necessity.

I thus finish this essay with an unsettled heart. Tolkien, I am convinced, is truly a cultural mythmaker as influential as Goethe; and Elendil, I am certain, is a hero cut from the same cloth as Aeneas.

But Aeneas’s cloth is the purple cloak worn to an emperor’s coronation; and Elendil’s cloth is the shroud worn to a king’s funeral. Rome was greater than Troy, but neither Arnor nor Gondor was as great as Númenor. Thus an Elendilian Age would not be as bright as an Aenean Age. Its destiny would be somewhere between the inspiring future of my original essay and the hellish future anticipated by my essay’s critics.

Yet this ought be no cause for despair. If the Aenean spirit or Tolkien’s northern courage means anything, it means that the fight must be fought regardless of the likelihood of success. And Tolkien’s myths remind us that even in decline, there is beauty, heroism, and meaning. The Elendilian Age, if it were to come, might not shine as brightly as the Faustian, or even the Aenean; but it would still carry forward the light of what came before. And in the end, that light—however faint—will be enough to illuminate the path for those who follow.

When one reads a book like Brideshead Revisited, one can’t help but be struck by the way its elegaic melancholy almost perfectly expresses the mood of the end of the American empire. Evelyn Waugh was writing at, and about, the end of the British Empire, which is why the emotional tone of his literary work is so familiar to the modern American reader. The Tree of Woe is, in my opinion, to observe that we are at the end of one age and entering into a new one; whether it is as dark and challenging as he anticipates is yet to be determined, but on the basis of the panopoly of known facts, certainly appears to be correct.

Read the whole thing there. It’s well worth it. And remember that the light of Christian civilization will survive so long as at least one of us possesses the courage to stand against the rising Dark.

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All “Success” is Manufactured

Indeed. What are the odds? And looking at them, what are the chances that they aren’t related in some way? Once you grasp the basic concept of its reality, the outlines of Clown World become clearer and clearer over time. It’s a club, you’re not in it, and more importantly, if you value your immortal soul, you do not want to be in it or even have anything to do with it.

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The Litany Against Retardery

Some may find this philosophical mantra to be useful as they are subjected to a non-stop stream of retardery from the Non-Player Characters in their lives mindlessly regurgitating their mainstream programming.

THE LITANY AGAINST RETARDERY

I do not hear.

Retardery is the cosmic background noise.

Retardery is the mind-morass that inspires neural disintegration.

I will face the retardery.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone it will leave no trace behind.

Where the retardery has passed there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

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Never Sell Out

At least, not if you value your legacy. Because, sooner or later, the acquiring company will destroy what you and your family have built.

After more than 157 years, Leinenkugel’s beer will no longer be brewed in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

The beer that has become synonymous with the western Wisconsin town will soon be produced at parent company Molson Coors’ sprawling plant in Milwaukee.

Molson Coors said the decision to move production of Leinenkugel’s products came after improvements to its canning line in Milwaukee. Another smaller brewery under the Molson Coors umbrella, 10th Street Brewery in Milwaukee, will also be rolled into the company’s main operation.

According to the Molson-Coors Company website, the Leinenkugel’s brewery, with 120 employees at the location in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, will soon be closing.

When efficiency is the order of the day, there is never any respect for history. The money is nice, but there is no legacy in having your name on a can of Old Shoe.

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Excellence in Everything

The pursuit of excellence, in even the most humble of responsibilities, is never a waste. Indeed, it can be recognized and celebrated, even in the most humble of responsibilities:

It’s been quite the week for Trevor Skogerboe. Skogerboe, an assistant equipment director at Cal, went viral over the weekend for tackling a fan who was trying to steal a helmet as the Golden Bears faithful stormed the field following a 24–21 victory over rival Stanford at California Memorial Stadium.

That tackle—which has gained the praise of many across the college football world, including Cal head football coach Justin Wilcox—earned Skogerboe a spot among the sport’s greatest talents in February.

Jim Nagy, the executive director of the Reese’s Senior Bowl, announced Wednesday that Skogerboe accepted his official invite to the annual showcase set for Feb. 1 at South Alabama. No, Skogerboe won’t be suiting up at linebacker at the 2025 Senior Bowl. But he will be a part of the equipment staff responsible for working the postseason college football All-Star game.

Don’t ever be content with just doing the minimum required. Pursue excellence, even if you’re the only one who will know the difference. Persistence plus excellence will not guarantee success – nothing short of taking the ticket will do that – but it lays the foundation that makes success possible.

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You Can’t Beat Father Time

Not even Iron Mike Tyson. He had two rounds to put Jake Paul away, and when he didn’t, the outcome became inevitable. Still, it’s good to see the younger generation showing due respect to their elders, even when they’ve passed them by. Jake Paul may have won a unanimous decision, but he also knows greatness when he sees it.

It took a fair amount of courage for Mike Tyson to get back in the ring, even against a show pony fighter like Jake Paul. Paul, like it or not, is a legitimate boxer now. He’s put in the time, he’s put in the training, and if he’s not about to take on a top-ranked fighter, well, he’s first and foremost an entertainer. But that doesn’t make him any less legitimate or dangerous. He’s got knockout power. And in the ring, anyone can hurt you; there are no guarantees and people get injured even in sparring. I’ve seen ankles broken, noses broken, and was even knocked out myself once in training.

I’m only two years younger than Iron Mike, so I know exactly how much he has slowed down over time. On the soccer field, I’ve been dealing with my inability to reach balls I would have easily gotten to first for the last 23 years; I remember the very practice at which my top gear, upon which I’d always relied, simply vanished. It just wasn’t there anymore. It doesn’t matter how well I keep myself in shape or how smart I play, I’m just a role player now. I don’t worry about scoring goals or providing assists anymore, I just try to keep my wing in order and protect my defender; it’s up to the younger players to win the game now and all I can really expect to do is prevent us from losing it via my side.

It’s certainly painful to watch our youthful sports heroes “embarrass” themselves by showing their age and how their greatness has departed them. But they’ve earned their right to go out there and compete with their successors, and to confirm what they already suspect about their decline. And as Jake Paul demonstrated with his obvious respect for the former world champion, what a thrill it is for the younger men to test themselves, even against the faded shadows of their great elders.

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The Intellectual Limits of Thomas Sowell

I like Thomas Sowell and his work. It was a minor influence on my intellectual development in my youth. But he has always been limited in his willingness to depart from conservative orthodoxy, as evidenced by his unwillingness to accept the relevant aspects of human genetics as they relate to societal development, or the lack thereof.

Sowell is the leading conservative proponent of the cultural explanation. In regard to race differences in the US, his idea is that black Americans adopted a dysfunctional culture from white rednecks in the South. A different culture would have, and in the future could, set blacks (as well as southern whites) on a different path. While he mostly avoids ad hominem attacks against hereditarians, he portrays most of them as bumbling half-wits with a history of making baseless and contradictory claims.

I was recently interviewed for “The Genius of Thomas Sowell” podcast to talk about hereditarianism vs. culturalism, and the host, Alan Wolan, persuaded me that it would be worth spelling out my objections to Sowell in more detail. Here I respond, in turn, to Sowell’s arguments for the cultural theory of race differences and his critique of hereditarianism. I contend that hereditarianism remains by far the most plausible explanation for persistent gaps among groups living under comparable conditions, including American blacks and whites.

Some hereditarians believe that, even if Sowellism is false, it would be politically expedient to promote it as a means of countering leftist narratives about race and racism. I will explain why this is a mistake. Even if (counterfactually) we could convince large numbers of people to accept Sowell’s scientifically incorrect theory of race differences, this would not stop wokism.

While he is a generally admirable man, one unfortunate characteristic of Sowell is his refusal to follow the observable, and even undeniable, truth, at the cost of his personal preferences. Given his identity complications, it is not even remotely surprising that he would prove willing to sacrifice his intellectual integrity on the altars of both race and personal relations.

Sowell is without doubt an effective starting point for conservatives, but at some point, anyone who is geniunely devoted to the Good, the Beautiful, and the True will find they have to move beyond him if their intellectual journey is going to proceed.

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Play to the Whistle

Whether it is the so-called Prevent Defense in the NFL or the various tactics used to waste time in international football, these are counterproductive tactics that serve absolutely no purpose except to allow the other team back in the game.

Have some confidence in yourself! If you’ve dominated the game for 80 minutes, or three-and-a-half quarters, keep doing what you’re doing! Don’t let up the gas and let the other team back into the game!

This season, our team had a problem with this. We’d go up one or two goals and the midfield would go passive while the defense would go to sleep. We lost three games we absolutely should have one before the guys seemed to get the message and keep pressing; we won the next game 10-0. The final game of the season, we were up 3-0 when the defense relaxed again; at one point one attacker went right through three defenders without any of them making a serious effort at stopping him. Fortunately, after going into halftime 4-4, we went back on the attack and ended up winning 8-5.

The key is that the team leaders need to stress the need to keep attacking, and the scorers need to keep taking their shots rather than getting cute and clever with their chances as they often do when the game – or the practice – start to feel easy. The best teams always blow out the bad teams instead of relaxing and playing down to their level. In those two high-scoring wins, our star striker took control and scored 9 goals in the two games.

The problem is that the human psyche doesn’t permit simultaneous passivity and aggression. If you start trying to waste time, you’ve stopped trying to actively win the game. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t practice wise clock management, and sometimes injuries force you to take off a key player and implement more defensive tactics. But the best defense is always a good offense; a team that is constantly rocked back on its heels isn’t one that is likely to get back into the game.

Every sprinter is taught the importance of finishing strong. Run THROUGH the tape. Save the celebrations for after the race. Always focus on finishing strong, never be content to just hang on.

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