Blog Posts on Christopher Carter

Reflections on Physical Training

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed physical training. When I was in high school I fell in love with cross country running and track and field. I loved the physicality and individuality of track. I was a smaller kid, and team sports often left me picked on by teammates, or feeling like I had let them down with my poor performance. In track, it didn’t matter; it was me against me, and my smaller stature and high pain tolerance made me good at events like the 1500m and the 300m hurdles. I ran a 4:56 1500m and went to the state meet multiple times for the 300m hurdles. As I got older, bigger, and stronger, I picked up the javelin and won 4th overall in Vermont Division II (whatever that means).

A Less Pathological Cell Phone Setup

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Cell phones ruined everything. Period.

They trash our attention span, our cognitive faculties, and our interpersonal relationships. They farm us for data and track our every move. They addict us and manipulate us with their flashy apps and algorithmically curated content. You don’t hate them enough. Seriously. If I could chuck mine in a lake, I would.

The Product that Doesn’t Exist

But, being a family man and a churchman, people expect me to carry one. If you’re like me and you hate carrying a cell phone, let me give you some tips on how to hamstring your phone’s ability to ruin your daily life.

Asymmetry as Medicine

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Modern life is a state of oppressive symmetry.

The activities of we moderns are largely the same every day. They work roughly the same hours. They do roughly the same tasks. They get paid the same amount, on schedule. They acquire food at the same times and in the same means. In other words, modern life is extremely symmetric.

I began reflecting on this after I started carrying a pocket notebook with me everywhere, in an attempt to put some distance between me and my cell phone. I am constantly thinking about something, a problem which is exacerbated by my little pocket computer, which provides an instantaneous means to investigate any idea as quickly as I can type. Before I know it, I’m researching the timeline of the Glorious Revolution, or assessing the economic risks of post-quantum cryptography on Bitcoin. It’s fun, but not productive. When I have my phone, I rarely sit with an idea and decide whether it is really worth my time to ponder. When I don’t have my phone, I gain new mental space to reflect upon it. Sometimes it really sticks with me, and I have to look into it. Other times, I forget about it. Sometimes I write it down and look into it the next time I open my notebook. Most times I just cross it out.

The American Turning Point

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Charlie Kirk was a man everyone should look up to in some way. He was smart, successful, pious, kind, and had a beautiful wife and children. His courage in consistently stepping into the public sphere to both spread the gospel of Christ and revive American Nationalism was exceedingly commendable. He was instrumental in influencing countless young men, which was a huge factor in getting Donald Trump elected in 2024. I didn’t always agree with him, but I appreciated him and his work.

On Old Thinkpads

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The laptop I’ve used for years is a Gen 6 Thinkpad X1 Carbon. I bought it for the express purpose (at the time) of doing heavy duty data analysis and computational mathematics in my late undergraduate time. It was a beast; I frequently used it for Bayesian inference, a notoriously compute-heavy task.

It also aged pretty well; I’ve put several Linux distributions on it and used it for a variety of projects and tasks as my life has changed. Many memories were made with that machine. But alas, its age is starting to show. It has terrible battery life and a tendency to overheat, even when running a very lightweight Linux distribution. It’s almost bricked its filesystem a couple times. After several urgings of my wife, I finally decided to get a new machine.

How and Why I'm Learning Latin as a Busy Dad

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Work On Yourself, Because No One Else Will

When you’re in your youth, all you have is time and energy. It may not feel like it, but it’s true. You have relatively few responsibilities and your main job is essentially to just try different stuff and work on yourself. A youth well spent should be filled with numerous experiences aimed at producing maturity and rounding out physical, intellectual, and spiritual faculties. Manhood, by contrast, is wrought with responsibilities, commitments, and covenants that must be kept. Time and energy become precious commodities in manhood, increasing the temptation to not work on yourself anymore. Fathers are busy, and often let themselves go as a result.

The Regulative Principle of Worship Explained and Defended

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Classically, Reformed theology has used the Regulative Principle of Worship to inform which elements of worship are permissible. According to the Regulative Principle, the Word of God regulates what is allowed in worship; if it isn’t commanded by God, then it isn’t permitted.

While this view was widely held by Reformed Christians up through the puritans, it has largely fallen by the wayside in the present day. The opposing principle, the Normative Principle of Worship, has become the dominant view in American Protestantism. It is more lenient, permitting whatever is not forbidden outright in the scriptures.

The Unraveling of Evangelicalism

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Matthew Barrett’s move to Anglicanism is just a high-profile example of the unraveling of Evangelicalism.

Barrett was a big shot in Evangelical academia and the SBC who eventually found his Evangelical faith and practice to be intellectually, spiritually, and historically shallow. His theological pursuits center around study of classical theology, especially the work of Thomas Aquinas, and these became increasingly opposed by the Baptistic ethos of the SBC. He is one of many such cases of men leaving Evangelicalism for something more solid. Men are consistently looking for more historic and intellectually deep expressions of Christianity, such as Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed churches. I spoke with a coworker a few days ago who was asking a lot of the same questions about his Evangelical background. It behooves us to ask what’s going on.

On The Existential Risk of AI

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I have written on the use of AI in the past, and how I believe widespread use of AI will lead to a further deterioration of human participation in essential human functions, like work, intellectual pursuits, and other tasks pertaining to natural human dominion. I believe this will play out similar to how the internet, smartphones, and social media (which were designed to enrich communication) have changed work and life in similar ways.

The Return to Normal

Sun, 25 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t advocate for recovering a family-centered economy because I want to “be Amish”. I’m not skeptical of continually increasing reliance on oil and electricity because I’m a “doomer”. I don’t think you should delete all your social media accounts and own a dumbphone because I’m “anti-technology”. My skepticism of the core elements of modern life does not make me “anti-progress”. My wife and I don’t abstain from birth control use because we’re “irresponsible”.

Get Rich By Not Buying Cheap?

Sun, 18 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It is a natural conclusion to make that more efficient things consume less. This is true on a micro scale: a car with greater fuel efficiency uses less fuel. However, at the macro scale, this is not the case. The Jevon’s Paradox is an observed paradox in economics which states that greater efficiency causes greater consumption at the collective scale. The mechanism for this is what Canadian economist Blair Fix calls “technological sprawl”: as a system gets more efficient, it gets cheaper. And because it gets cheaper, we tend to use more of it, often disproportionately.

The End is the Same

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The end of all men is the same. Rich or poor, famous or ordinary, intelligent or stupid, learned or illiterate, strong or weak, old or young, their end is all the same.

Every man dies. Every man is forgotten.

Therefore what counts in life is not glory, or fame, or riches, or any other superlative. Duty to God and man are the only things that count. Do not burden yourself with lofty goals beyond the earthy and heavenly good of your people. A man can no more expect himself to be rich or influential or successful any more than he can expect himself to be lucky. For riches, influence, good looks, success, and many other aspects of abundance are in large part due to luck. All things come from God: blessing and cursing, celebration and mourning, life and death. Accept your lot in life, whether lucky or unlucky, as the result of the fatherly providence of the Lord of Glory. For, “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28).

Marcus Aurelius on Digital Minimalism

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Why should any of these things that happen externally, so much distract thee? Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing, and cease roving and wandering to and fro. Thou must also take heed of another kind of wandering, for they are idle in their actions, who toil and labour in this life, and have no certain scope to which to direct all their motions, and desires.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II

Stop Eating Sugar

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Excessive sugar consumption is one of the most widespread vices in the modern world. Here’s why you should stop making sugar a staple of your diet.

A New Americanism

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m currently reading Allan Carlson’s The “American Way”, a history of 20th Century American political thought regarding the American family and its relationship to national identity. Carlson’s main thesis is that the “American Way” predominantly revolves not around propositional or ethnic identity, but family life. Maybe I’ll do a book review on it sometime.

What strikes me about the book’s account of early 20th century American politics is how concerned politicians used to be with the good of the American people as people. It was the chief concern of men like Theodore Roosevelt. Even issues such as feminism and immigration were contextualized against the backdrop of collective national good.

Make Your Home

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Young men, fill your home with as much joy, beauty, and meaning as you can. Teach your family to sing, worship, laugh, read, work, and do every other good and natural thing. Make your home a safe haven, a little world unto itself; a beacon of hope and joy in the gloom of this vast dystopia.

Don't Pull Too Hard

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The modern world is unprecedented in its ability to provide huge amounts of economic leverage to almost everybody. We have a huge amount of resources at our beck and call. We can call upon a large number of virtual servants to fulfill our desires at a moment’s notice, and do so relatively cheaply. We have many levers we can pull, and each one of them can move a lot of stuff. The device you are reading this on is one such lever.

A Quick and Practical Guide to Radio

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The best option for family communication during travel, adventures, and emergencies, is old fashioned radio.

2007

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The iPhone was invented in 2007.

That’s only 18 years ago. Now everyone carries something like it in their pocket and spends 7 hours of their day staring at it, interacting with people and data at a near instantaneous global scale.

With regard to the complete human good, we do not know the implications of this yet. Anyone who says they do is a liar or an idiot. There are people who were born at the start of this phenomenon who are now adults. What impact will this have on the psychological development of subsequent generations? How well are they going to do as workers, householders, parents, and government leaders? What effect has it already had? Why is no one talking about these questions, and why are those who do talk about them scorned as anti-technology and anti-progress? Do we really have enough data after only 18 years to conclude that this new paradigm is “safe and effective” for human beings?

Direct Deposit

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When I got my first checkbook in high school, I had to learn how to use it. I would write checks for things and then periodically have to balance my checkbook to keep the balance up to date based on any deposits, withdrawels, debits, or credits against my account. It was mostly silly stuff like haircuts, new shoes I wanted, etc. I was just a kid, and checks were basically the only way I had to pay, except for cash.

Yes, It's All Fake

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Ryan Duff recently exposed “Patriarchy Hannah” as a fraud on Twitter.

It’s one thing to be an anon, like Stephen Junius Brutus, or Publius, for the sake of saying what needs to be said while still protecting yourself and your family. It’s another thing to fabricate an entire life online, especially at the neglect of your real life. Unfortunately, there are many such cases. We live in a world of images, and have convinced ourselves that they are more “real” than the real world. Online, it’s all fake.

I Really Don't Get the AI Craze

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I spend all day writing software, and I still don’t get the whole AI craze happening currently.

Anecdotally, whenever I’ve used ChatGPT for work, I would estimate it to have about a 50% accuracy when I ask it a question. Most of my queries involve looking up API documentation that’s hard to find, or diagnosing obscure errors; things that are extremely niche and difficult to find using a regular search engine. This is something I’d expect an LLM to do well: it should use the vast background of its training data to find me an answer, if one exists. About half of the time, it does. The other half of the time, it just makes something up, which is not helpful when you’re in the weeds on a production issue. Admittedly, ChatGPT has bailed me out in the past, but other times it’s just added to the background noise.

Dumbphone

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a dumbphone for a while now.

The benefit of a dumbphone is that you are more disconnected from the virtual world, and more connected to the real world.

The drawback is that nowadays everyone lives in the virtual world.

An Old Stanley No. 4

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I recently bought a Stanley Bailey No. 4C type 14 smoothing plane, from the mid-1920s, made in America.

A 1902 Stanley catalog lists this plane as at $2.20. Using a government propaganda CPI calculator, that probably means someone paid around $3.50 for it when they bought it. That same calculator tells me that translates to about $70 today, which is a little more than I paid for it in an antique store.

Notes on The Art of Christian Piety

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“The knight,” says C.S. Lewis, “is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost maidenlike, guest in a hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth. The man who combines both characters – the knight – is not a work of nature but of art; of that art which has human beings, instead of canvas or marble, for its medium.”

De Familia Ad Nationem

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A nation, for the good of its people, must secure itself both in space and in time. One of the most important ways a nation secures its existence in time is by securing the coherence of its families. The family, being the fruitful union of man and wife, is the fundamental political unit of civil society. It is the most efficient cause of the resources, actions, values, and loves belonging to a nation; the way in which a nation is most closely linked with what it has, and what it is. Ultimately, families are one of the principal material causes of a nation.

On Imprecatory Prayers

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 20:10:24 -0400

There is much to be gained by singing and praying the Psalms. Aldo Leon has compelling sermons on the benefits of doing so here and here. In short, the Psalms teach us how to pray, and how to sing. They are divinely inspired songs and hymns and prayers, serving as precise regulation of God on how his people are to sing and pray to Him.

In a day of happy slappy Christianity and worship songs from Big Eva Christian Music Inc. (which are theologically and spiritually shallower than a plate of cereal), the Psalms provide guidance for how we are to approach God in the sundry circumstances of everyday life. Are you grieving? Sing Psalm 6. Are you victorious? Sing Psalm 21. Are you praising God? Sing Psalm 150. Are you vexed over the wicked? Sing Psalm 37. Are you in sin? Sing Psalm 51.

No More

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 10:36:50 -0400

There no more useful innovation to be done in the field of computing. If there is, almost nobody is working on it.

Computers are useful for processing data and communicating with others. Anything beyond that is useless at best, and harmful at worst. Our current computer infrastructure already solves the basic problems we want it to. We already have programs and protocols like email, and HTTP, and SMS, etc. which allow us to communicate with each others just fine. We already have programs that allow us to share documents and photos and videos and other files. We already have programs that allow us to do financial accounting, and banking, and currency transaction. We have programs to keep things cryptographically secure. Name any human function that we need computers for, and I claim it is already built. Useful computing needs only to be maintained at this point.

Chess, Twitter, Zyns, and Other Vices

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 16:51:16 -0400

Acknowledging that modernity has many blessings is not an endorsement of everything that modernity does. That’s just like…basic logic, and it is my position. Neo-luddism as I have presented it is not an outright rejection of modernity or an arbitrary truncation of technological usage; it is a critical posture towards modernity in light of basic eternal truths of human nature.

Thus, even though modernity is full of blessings, it is not full of only blessings. We can logically throw out destructive and consumptive aspects of modernity that are not blessings, and still embrace the blessings. Modernity is not a monolith; modern technological advancements of the modern age are not all logically entailed in each other. Questioning whether we should really be carrying around these addictive mobile phones with us is not the same thing as questioning the use of penecillin in lieu of bloodletting.

The Mountains Call

Tue, 03 Sep 2024 11:47:49 -0400

The top three killers of the American people are heart disease, cancer, and medical error. That means the top three killers of Americans are largely preventable illnesses and conditions.

Our food is one problem. The staples of the American diet are seed-oil filled, ultra-processed, ultra-pasteurized, double-hybridized, geneticially modified, nutritionally depleted post-war consumer slop, with added sugar. These foods are addictive and unable to be processed by our bodies. Our fathers drank raw milk and ate homegrown meat and vegetables. Big Food and Big Pharma are to blame here, along with the government organizations who enable and tolerate them. But that’s a topic for another time.

Resilient Communication Networks

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 10:38:25 -0400

One of the marks of the post-industrial world is the abstraction of basic human function. These abstractions are all around us, and serve to create the ease and efficiency of the modern world. It is the reason you can use the internet to order an Amazon package within minutes, and it arrive at your door within two days. The abstraction is the simple interface you interact with (your phone, or computer, etc.) combined with the massive infrastructure of supply chains, communication networks, financial contracts, international relations, and all the other innovations of modernity that stand behind it. An abstraction is a mask for complexity, which allows you to move tremendous resources at your beck and call, making things easy, cheap, and fast.

Reject a "Career", Embrace Independence

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Modernity is a series of abstractions from the real world.

The things we depend upon for daily sustinence are merely the presentation layer of a complex network of supply chains, technologies, contracts, laws, and financial instruments. As moderns, don’t get our food from the ground, where it comes from, but from the grocery store, where it is pre-processed, packaged, and sold. We communicate virtually via computer networks more than we do face-to-face. We buy more things online from ecommerce giants like Amazon, and box stores like Home Depot, than we do from mom and pop brick and mortar stores. We are, as one of my friends put it, a “third person society”; our friendships are third person (podcasts), our politics are third person (whatever they’re doing on Washington), and even our sex is third person (pornography). We don’t even use our own money to buy things anymore; we take short term loans of other people’s money via an electronic network (a credit card) to pay for our own purchases.

America Needs Trump

Sun, 21 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Christian Prince is a great man, whose rule and example galvanizes the political will and civil cohesion of a Christian nation.

I’m not saying Trump is that man. But, Trump gave us a glimpse of what that kind of man can do.

He took a bullet to the ear, meant for his head, and instead of just making a direct escape, he paused, stood up, and pumped his fist to indicate to a watching nation that he still won’t back down without a fight. It was one of the most glorious and galvanizing things America has seen in a long time.

Pick Your Path

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The first lesson about success in life is that it is path dependent.

Where you arrive depends on the path you took to get there. When you’re young, many paths lie before you. You can be anything, because you aren’t anything yet. When you make decisions to take your life in a certain direction, other paths, and therefore other destinations, close off. When you’ve chosen to be a software engineer, it’s hard to pivot to becoming a plumber when you’re 40 (and vice versa). If you’ve just started learning chess at 27, you’ll likely never be a grandmaster. The longer you’ve lived someplace, the harder it is to move somewhere else.

Pivot

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Dear reader,

As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t posted anything on here in a while. This has been semi-intentional. The unintentional part of why I haven’t posted in so long is simply that life is busier for me. I’m no longer a wide-eyed early 20s man anymore, and as such, my life has a larger number of responsibilities. Blogging is one of the first things on the chopping block when time is short.

Call Me A Luddite

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past couple of years, I have slowly been disconnecting myself from the technological matrix that has seemingly engulfed everything good, true, and beautiful in our world. A few years ago I completely disconnected from Instagram and Facebook. I had an anon Twitter account for short periods in the interim, but I’ve gotten rid of that too. I switched my phone from Apple to a non-Google OS called GrapheneOS which runs on Android. I paid off my only car and shredded my only credit card. I’ve never owned a TV, and never will. I’ve never owned a video game console. I’ve had a Reddit account for all of 5 minutes. And most recently, I’ve finally cut myself off from that nagging spectre, YouTube, which took some of the most drastic action yet to accomplish.

Heed the Wail of the Geat Woman

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The land of the Geats was peaceful, ruled and guarded by king Beowulf, now an old man. All was well, until a lowly thief, a man of weak constitution, stole from the treasure collection of a dragon. That old hoard guard was awakened to human footsteps, and accounted among his vast wealth that one piece small piece was missing. Enraged, that winged demon began to terrorize the Geats, relentless in his fury, killing them one by one and burning their homes, their crops, and their livestock. Darkness fell upon the Geats, and terror gripped their hearts.

It's Supposed to Feel Like This

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Thomas Cole’s brilliant insight into the nature of manhood.

Circumcision: A Sign of Faith

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

There are those who say that circumcision is not a sign of faith, but rather an ordinance of the law, having nothing to do with faith at all. They do not deny that the sign of circumcision was the sign of the Old Covenant, rather, they uphold that the Old Covenant was only a covenant in the flesh, a covenant which demanded outward obedience to the law, with circumcision being merely the first task of obedience to it. As such, they say, given the uselessness of this Old Covenant in producing the obedience which God desired, God did away with it, replacing it with the New Covenant and its sign of baptism, signifying the spiritual resurrection of the individual. They say circumcision is not a sign of such inward change; whereas baptism is a sign of faith, circumcision only signified ancestral generation from Abraham, serving only to identify those covenant people of Israel through lawful ordinance applied in accord with natural reproduction. Scripture is opposed: circumcision is a sign of faith, and a schoolmaster of it.

Be Fruitful and Multiply: The Antidote to the Poison of the Service Economy

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The Christian tradition has always placed a strong emphasis on property ownership. In fact, it is such a central concept to the law of God that it is one of the Ten Commandments: “do not steal”. The books of the law, like with the other commandments, give various case law examples of how to “not steal” in day-to-day life and business. “Stealing” need not be limited only to the forceful or discrete acquisition of something which is not yours. Various laws against stealing prohibited improper or unjust valuations, as well as inaccurate weights and measures (Leviticus 19:35-36), usurous and consumptive interest on debts (Exodus 22:25), negligent destruction of property (Exodus 21:35-36, 22:6), breaches of trust (Exodus 22:7), and so on. Laws against theft were to be punished by restoration of whatever was stolen, plus an extra amount (usually 20-25%) to account for the damage done by the deed. Under God’s Law, whoever owns a piece of property really owns it; it is truly his, and only he has a right to its use. Disputes about property ownership were made before God between private parties, mediated by the Levitical priesthood as a representative of God’s law. God is the proprietor of all things, and hence is the only appropriate mediator to any dispute regarding property rights.

Against the Divine Right of Kings

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In some parts of the world, the dominant political theory from the late 16th century to roughly the late 18th century was a doctrine known as the Divine Right of Kings. This doctrine states that a monarch is not answerable to any earthly authority. The reasoning behind this is that the king is established by God Himself, and is thus answerable only to God for His actions. He may rule over everyone else with an iron rod, and be as benevolent or as harsh as he was determined to be. Neither parliament or the clergy had any legitimacy to doubt the actions of earthly king, let alone resist them. This doctrine fueled the absolutism of King James I of England, one of the greatest supporters of the Divine Right theory, and also heavily influenced the absolute rule of Louis XIV of France, who called himself the “Sun King”.

The Decadence of the American Empire

Sat, 17 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A few months ago, a good friend of mine sent me an essay written by notable British general and historian Sir John Bagot Glubb called The Fate of Empires in which he examined the lifespans of eleven different empires across history. Glubb’s observation was that each empire spanned a period of approximately 10 generations, or 250 years. The table below shows the data that Glubb was examining.

What’s more, the lifecycle of each of these empires appeared to follow a predictable pattern of stages from their inception to their downfall. Glubb identifies seven stages, in particular, that can be identified across every empire. They are, in chronological order, the Age of Pioneers, the Age of Conquests, the Age of Commerce, the Age of Affluence, the Age of Intellect, the Age of Decadence, and the Age of Decline & Collapse. The essay is a fascinating little read, and I’ll link it for [download here](/assets/doc/The Fate of Empires, John Glubb.pdf), along with some [helpful notes](/assets/doc/Broad Historical Categorizations.pdf) but for the sake of readers here I will give a brief summary of each age according to Glubb’s description.

No Up and No Down: The Rot of Modernism and Postmodernism

Wed, 19 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

There are chiefly three regimes of thought that have developed throughout human history. These are, in historical order: the Premodern, the Modern, and the Postmodern. All three of them have different ways of determining what is True, what is Good, and what is Beautiful.

In general, the regime of thought known as “Modernism” is the dominant regime of the Modern world, although that is quickly changing. It is associated with rationalism and materialism, the latter being the assumption that the only things that truly exist are material, and the former being the belief that what can be known is only that which can be deduced via human reason. Unsurprisingly, the rise of Modernism coincided with the rise of natural science. Although the two things are not synonymous, they share many of the same assumptions about the world and have a common view of how to attain new knowledge. Modernism’s defining characteristic is that it restricts Truth only to what can be observed and reasoned about. Because Modernists are materialists, this restricts their field of study to the interplay of universal laws, matter, time, and space. All that ever was and ever is and ever will be can be explained in terms of these things, and anything which cannot be reached by reason or observation is simply a non-entity. In other words, there is no room for spiritual or metaphysical explanations that cannot be observed, and any Truths that cannot be arrived at by a deductive argument are simply unknowable. Famous science educator Carl Sagan, an atheist, summarizes this view of the Universe by saying, “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us – there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.” Sagan’s viewpoint is that the physical Universe is the same thing as the Cosmos; it is all that there is, and there is nothing else outside of it to govern it or intervene in its inner workings. The ideas of “meaning” and “significance” have no place in this, as they are not things which can be directly measured or reasoned to.

A Vindication of Resistance

Mon, 12 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

On the day of the feast of St. Bartholomew in the year 1572, thousands Huguenots were slaughtered in the streets of Paris by mobs of Roman Catholics under the decree of the French monarchy.

The Huguenots were a Protestant theological minority in France. They were importers of Calvin’s theology, and their numbers had grown steadily from an underground movement smattered across southern France to a much larger and more public presence. It is estimated that the Huguenots made up around 10% of the French population on the eve of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. Their growing influence incited Catholic hostility, and a number of intermittent conflicts arose between the Huguenots and the Catholics in France during the 16th century known as the French Wars of Religion. During a time of peace prior to the massacre, a prominent Huguenot leader named Admiral Gaspard de Coligny had begun to sway King Charles IX towards the side of the Protestant faith. This brought consternation among the Guises, a royal family of ardent Catholics who were old rivals with Coligny. The Guises tried to solve this problem by attempting an assassination against Coligny, which left him severely wounded but still very much alive. The Huguenots were understandably furious that an attempt at Coligny’s life had been taken during a time of peace, and their outrage caused Queen Catherine De’ Medici and the rest of the royal court to be thrown into a panic, fearing that the Protestants would make a counterattack on the royal family. The Guise were dispatched by the royals to finish Coligny off, but a miscommunication led the town guard to believe that Guises meant them to kill of every Protestant in the city, and not just Coligny. The ensuing massacre on St. Bartholomew’s Day marked a turning point in the conflict between French Protestants and Catholics, as it is estimated that anywhere between 5,000 to 30,000 Huguenots died in the carnage. Similar massacres happened as word spread to neighboring towns and cities, resulting in the martyrdom of countless more Huguenots.

Stop Being Nice

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t want nice men, I want kind men.

The astute among you will turn to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and note that the words “nice” and “kind” are synonyms. The even more astute among you will also remember that Merriam-Webster actually changed the definition of “racism” this past year. It’s 2021, and redefining words and ideas is the trendy thing to do now, like making TikTok videos and becoming a Marxist. The good old days, when words like “truth”, “gender”, and “vaccine” actually meant what they stood for, and when people acted according to the meanings of these words, are over. I think that “nice” and “kind” mean different things, and this is my blog post, on my website, so I get to say whatever I want regardless of whatever Jack Dorsey or any other technocrat thinks about it.