#philosophyslams

That fatuous dolt, Carlyle, knew well enough what England lacks and has always lacked; Carlyle, that half-actor and rhetorician who tried to conceal under impassioned grimaces what he knew about himself: namely, what he *lacked* -- real *power* of intellect, real *profundity* of spiritual vision, in short: philosophy.

[The artist] is in the end only the precondition of his work, the womb, the ground, in some cases the fertilizer and manure on which, out of which, it grows -- and thus in most cases something one must forget if one wants to enjoy the work itself.

I do not know the art of being clear for those who are not willing to be attentive.

One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.

It fell to modern liberalism to give the fullest, and perhaps the crudest expression of this line of thought: 'the principle on which public institutions ought to be formed,' Bentham declared, is that an office-holder can be expected to subordinate office to personal advantage. Yet this presents no cause for alarm, at least not to the innocent, because when the principle 'is applied to all men universally, it is injurious to none.' What is significant is the implicit assumption that a political office is itself an 'interest' exactly on the same level as any other kind of interest. 'It is only by the magnitude of the scale that public trusts differ from private trusts.' Apparently the suggestion is no longer seriously entertained that there is a peculiar dignity or status to public office which exacts an obligation transcending the personal interest of the occupant. The epitaph to the majesty of the political was supplied by Bentham: 'It is to the interest of the public that the portion of respect which, along with the salary, is habitually attached to any office should be as small as possible.'

Indeed, it has been and remains one of the abiding concerns of the Western political theorist to weave ingenious veils of euphemism to conceal the ugly fact of violence. At times he has talked too sonorously of “authority,” “justice,” and “law,” as though these honorific expressions alone could transform coercion into simple restraint.

From the philosopher E.D. Klemke, Wittgenstein's "lecture on ethics" is "undoubtedly one of the shoddiest things ever written on the subject," being of "no value whatsoever," and employing a "manner of philosophizing" that is "despicable."

Human things are complex, obscure, and legitimately give rise to uncertainty and doubt, but if there is one thesis on human things that has no chance of being true, it is Constant's theory of war.