“Dignity” and “Thought”: When the American President Declares War on Reason
“All our dignity consists in thought.”-Blaise Pascal, Pensées
It’s a New Year. For the most part, penetrating thought remains the veiled province of academic specialists....
“No Attention to Spare for Reasoning”: When the American President Is “Mass Man”
“The mass-man has no attention to spare for reasoning; he learns only in his own flesh.” - Jose Ortega y’Gasset, The Revolt of the...
“America First” And Planetary Survival: A Primal Contradiction
"The egocentric ideal of a future reserved for those who have managed to attain egoistically the extremity of `everyone for himself' is false and...
The Ultimate Test of Illegal Orders: Nuclear War Decision-Making by President Trump
“As to dangers arising from an irrational American president, the best protection is not to elect one.” - General Maxwell D. Taylor, letter to...
“A House of Dynamite”: Donald Trump and Nuclear War
Origins of a Unique Threat
The new film, “A House of Dynamite.” concerns a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear attack on the United States. Though many will regard...
Calamity, Truth and Silence: America and World-System Chaos
“At the beginning of the pestilence and when it ends, there’s always a propensity for rhetoric…It is only in the thick of a calamity...
“The Greatest Affair of State”: Managing Risks of Nuclear Warfare
“Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the way to survival or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered...
“Awake Or Asleep”: Reason, Not Politics, Is The Path To Nuclear War Avoidance
“Whether we are awake or asleep, we should never let ourselves be persuaded except on the evidence of our reason.” - René Descartes, Discourse...
“On A Darkling Plain” – Humankind’s Core Obligation to Prevent Nuclear War
“And we are here as on a darkling plain….” -Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach
It’s not a subtle or controversial observation: Unless humankind is able to...
Reason And Existence: Israel And Nuclear War
“The rational is not thinkable without its other, the non-rational, and never appears in reality without it.” - Karl Jaspers, Reason and Existence (1935)
Introduction
Along...