Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 30

The first 15 countries to grant women the vote

In chronological order: 1893 New Zealand1902 Australia1906 Finland1913 Norway1915 Denmark1917 Canada1918 Austria, Germany, Poland, Russia1919 Netherlands1920 United States1921 Sweden1928 Britain, Ireland All other countries in the world: Granted later or not yet granted. Interesting: Six of the fifteen are British or former British colonies, and the other nine are northern European. Source. Related: This clip on the Enlightenment of the 1700s, which transformed the Western world’s […]

Toohey’s five strategies of altruism

The ethics of altruism [from the Latin, alter-ism or other-ism] holds that others are the standard of value. One is good to the extent one puts the interests of others first, acts to achieve their interests, and, when necessary, sacrifices one’s interests for their sake. In The Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey is the major strategist of […]

Lecture 3: ABSURDITY AND MEANINGLESSNESS? JEAN-PAUL SARTRE and ALBERT CAMUS. Postmodern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

Suppose that God really is dead. Then, Sartre says “there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it.” Camus asks whether we are then like Sisyphus, “the absurd hero.” Themes: The decline of religion? The reality of war. Depression and the Depression. The pointlessness of existence? Existence precedes […]

Innovations in transportation: The Box

One reason why goods are much less expensive now: “Freighters used to carry loose cargo in sacks and crates of various sizes, crammed into holds and piled on deck by stevedores. That began to change in 1956, when a Texas trucking magnate named Malcom McLean refitted an oil tanker with steel frames on its decks […]

Rossini and the end of the castrati

One more thing to thank the Enlightenment for. I’m reading a biography of Rossini. Gioachino was born into a musical family in February 1792 (two months after the death of Mozart), but his family always struggled financially. In the music world of the 1700s, the castrati had reached the height of their popularity due to […]

Cacti and metaphysics [From *The Power of One*]

From a favorite novel. A mentor to the main character, a young boy named Peekay, speaking to the boy’s mother in the context of trying to convince her to let the boy take music lessons: “God and I have no quarrels, madame. The Almighty conceived the cactus plant. If God would choose a plant to […]

Friedrich Engels against liberal peace

A good example of how political philosophy is driven by ethics. Here is Engels, Karl Marx’s collaborator in writing The Communist Manifesto and other works, criticizing liberals despite nineteenth-century liberalism’s great accomplishment in reducing war and promoting peace between nations: “You have brought about the fraternization of the peoples — but the fraternity is the […]

Rousseau: “the Homer of the losers”

Judith Shklar (1928-1992) was Professor of Government at Harvard University, the first woman to receive tenure in that department. Her perfect zinger capturing the essence and the appeal of Rousseau: My discussion of Rousseau is in “The Climate of Collectivism,” which is Chapter Four of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.

Barry Marshall, ulcers, and resistance to discovery

“The greatest obstacle to discovery,” argues Barry Marshall, “is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.” Marshall is the co-discoverer of Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes stomach ulcers, for which he won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine. But his hypothesis initially met with great resistance from the medical establishment, which was strongly committed […]

ANALYSTS OF THE SELF: SIGMUND FREUD and MARTIN HEIDEGGER. Lecture 2 of Postmodern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

A world devastated by war. Sigmund Freud asserts “Man is a wolf to man.” Martin Heidegger — rejecting the Enlightenment and everything since ancient Greek philosophy — asks: “Are we allowed to tamper with the rule of ‘logic’?” Themes: The new psychology. Pessimism. Instinct and aggression. Logic as limiting. Emotions as accessing. Nihilism? World War […]