John Holbo
@jholbo.bsky.social
Professor of Philosophy, Illustrator of Philosophers
https://www.onbeyondzarathustra.com
https://www.onbeyondzarathustra.com
"Brazil" cancellation. Sad.
November 22, 2025 at 1:05 AM
"Brazil" cancellation. Sad.
Hazony's got an answer! The Enlightenment! Voltaire! The Encyclopedists! Have you considered the threat not just from Voltaire - but from Diderot, D'Holbach, D'Alembert - all of them. Every one!
November 22, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Hazony's got an answer! The Enlightenment! Voltaire! The Encyclopedists! Have you considered the threat not just from Voltaire - but from Diderot, D'Holbach, D'Alembert - all of them. Every one!
Hazony: "There’s lots of liberal antisemites, which is something that strangely keeps getting left out of this conversation."
Douthat dutifully asks but even he is a bit embarrassed to be heard asking 'why should someone worried about antisemitism fear liberalism as much or more than nationalism?'
Douthat dutifully asks but even he is a bit embarrassed to be heard asking 'why should someone worried about antisemitism fear liberalism as much or more than nationalism?'
November 22, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Hazony: "There’s lots of liberal antisemites, which is something that strangely keeps getting left out of this conversation."
Douthat dutifully asks but even he is a bit embarrassed to be heard asking 'why should someone worried about antisemitism fear liberalism as much or more than nationalism?'
Douthat dutifully asks but even he is a bit embarrassed to be heard asking 'why should someone worried about antisemitism fear liberalism as much or more than nationalism?'
‘Whoever you ah, ah have ALWAYS depended on the patience of ethicists and neuroscientists’.
November 18, 2025 at 1:52 PM
‘Whoever you ah, ah have ALWAYS depended on the patience of ethicists and neuroscientists’.
Are there typical patterns one sees in abusive relationships that are NOT mirrored in Trump's relationship to the American people? (If the beatings stop & the victim isn't grateful - how ungrateful would THAT be? Probably deserving of further beating is how ungrateful!)
November 17, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Are there typical patterns one sees in abusive relationships that are NOT mirrored in Trump's relationship to the American people? (If the beatings stop & the victim isn't grateful - how ungrateful would THAT be? Probably deserving of further beating is how ungrateful!)
Also, somehow the close conjunction of Clubby and Lost World - it's wrong in the wrong way.
November 16, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Also, somehow the close conjunction of Clubby and Lost World - it's wrong in the wrong way.
Imagine you had a Time Machine and you could send people into the past to solve crimes - but the machine only works on sex pests. Hence, a dilemma.
November 16, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Imagine you had a Time Machine and you could send people into the past to solve crimes - but the machine only works on sex pests. Hence, a dilemma.
David Teniers, the Younger, "The Temptation of St. Anthony" (1650). And detail. And another, cosier treatment of the theme by same. (Care to come in and see my etchings?)
November 16, 2025 at 5:55 AM
David Teniers, the Younger, "The Temptation of St. Anthony" (1650). And detail. And another, cosier treatment of the theme by same. (Care to come in and see my etchings?)
If you are wondering whether you can chuckle at MBD's fecklessness in good conscience - maybe Hanania is doing that thing where he feigns a philosopher's thought-experiment is a weak empirical claim? - rest assured: in this case, not.
November 16, 2025 at 1:25 AM
If you are wondering whether you can chuckle at MBD's fecklessness in good conscience - maybe Hanania is doing that thing where he feigns a philosopher's thought-experiment is a weak empirical claim? - rest assured: in this case, not.
You don't have to hand it to Hanania, handling Deneen. But MBD made it meta-funny: 'Until the '50's a political philosopher could afford a home on a single salary & support his controversial empirical propositions without data. Look what they took from you!'
www.richardhanania.com/p/patrick-de...
www.richardhanania.com/p/patrick-de...
November 16, 2025 at 1:25 AM
You don't have to hand it to Hanania, handling Deneen. But MBD made it meta-funny: 'Until the '50's a political philosopher could afford a home on a single salary & support his controversial empirical propositions without data. Look what they took from you!'
www.richardhanania.com/p/patrick-de...
www.richardhanania.com/p/patrick-de...
Supreme Court: it doesn't count as a present UNTIL the depth gauge exceeds 90 feet.
November 16, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Supreme Court: it doesn't count as a present UNTIL the depth gauge exceeds 90 feet.
Bondi's official line is she is launching an investigation predicated on a hoax. I don't like Derrida but there is a term for this. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle_...
November 14, 2025 at 11:38 PM
Bondi's official line is she is launching an investigation predicated on a hoax. I don't like Derrida but there is a term for this. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle_...
I was working on this raven for a while, for a Poe-related thing. Trying to do a Charley Harper thing. What I learned is it is hard to do a Charley Harper-style front-facing raven without it seeming like you are designing an Egyptian god.
November 14, 2025 at 10:30 PM
I was working on this raven for a while, for a Poe-related thing. Trying to do a Charley Harper thing. What I learned is it is hard to do a Charley Harper-style front-facing raven without it seeming like you are designing an Egyptian god.
My personal involvement in L'Affaire Epstein appears to have been strictly nominal. This fits with my recollections.
November 14, 2025 at 10:10 PM
My personal involvement in L'Affaire Epstein appears to have been strictly nominal. This fits with my recollections.
Just chillin' like Krillin.
November 13, 2025 at 4:59 AM
Just chillin' like Krillin.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
(Obviously he would deflect with flim-flam 'ackshually classical liberalism ...' Still, healthy he's taking an interest in American politics.)
(Obviously he would deflect with flim-flam 'ackshually classical liberalism ...' Still, healthy he's taking an interest in American politics.)
November 13, 2025 at 2:42 AM
What a long, strange trip it's been.
(Obviously he would deflect with flim-flam 'ackshually classical liberalism ...' Still, healthy he's taking an interest in American politics.)
(Obviously he would deflect with flim-flam 'ackshually classical liberalism ...' Still, healthy he's taking an interest in American politics.)
This is a really interesting post. I like the quote from the middle of it. Very wry.
November 13, 2025 at 1:51 AM
This is a really interesting post. I like the quote from the middle of it. Very wry.
Big Joyce Carol Oates energy coming off this character, amiright? Been around, seen action, but twisted and unable to authentically relate to nature - like conservatives.
November 12, 2025 at 5:03 AM
Big Joyce Carol Oates energy coming off this character, amiright? Been around, seen action, but twisted and unable to authentically relate to nature - like conservatives.
![From J.S. Mill, "On Liberty", "He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to[Pg 110] gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision. And these qualities he requires and exercises exactly in proportion as the part of his conduct which he determines according to his own judgment and feelings is a large one. It is possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of harm's way, without any of these things. But what will be his comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. Supposing it were possible to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes tried, and even churches erected and prayers said, by machinery—by automatons in human form—it would be a considerable loss to exchange for these automatons even the men and women who at present inhabit the more civilised parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved specimens of what nature can and will produce. Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and[Pg 111] develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:b7nwyonilwymqnwhomv6yfvy/bafkreickzwe4pkwwrtleh7fkbqqwx2ccsxm6iv3bokffskihapl7jebhcm@jpeg)
I forgot to mention: it's a shame Woke meant Reed Richards couldn't smoke a pipe in the movie. Honestly, that might have put it over the top.
November 12, 2025 at 2:53 AM
I forgot to mention: it's a shame Woke meant Reed Richards couldn't smoke a pipe in the movie. Honestly, that might have put it over the top.
A cleanser from conservative worries that the women are taking over, perilously feminizing our institutions, and that men are being attacked, hence Nick Fuentes. Trust regular men: in wifely indulgence of manly hobbies & preoccupations lies the path to civilisational security & salvation!
November 12, 2025 at 1:21 AM
A cleanser from conservative worries that the women are taking over, perilously feminizing our institutions, and that men are being attacked, hence Nick Fuentes. Trust regular men: in wifely indulgence of manly hobbies & preoccupations lies the path to civilisational security & salvation!
Douthat is subtweeting Rod 'sewn in the hotdog suit' Dreher & David French. What to say? It's true that the Treaty of Versailles paves the way for Hitler. But if at Nuremberg the defendants said they were basically expressing economic frustration at punitive terms of the treaty of Versailles ...?
November 12, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Douthat is subtweeting Rod 'sewn in the hotdog suit' Dreher & David French. What to say? It's true that the Treaty of Versailles paves the way for Hitler. But if at Nuremberg the defendants said they were basically expressing economic frustration at punitive terms of the treaty of Versailles ...?
I was teaching it one semester and the younger daughter asked about it and I told it right and she illustrated it. Here we see Victor making the monster and then just bugging out and standing around outside and then Clerval shows up & is like 'dude, write home more, fam's worried.'
November 11, 2025 at 3:51 PM
I was teaching it one semester and the younger daughter asked about it and I told it right and she illustrated it. Here we see Victor making the monster and then just bugging out and standing around outside and then Clerval shows up & is like 'dude, write home more, fam's worried.'