The Value of a Library

After about sixteen months, abandoned in boxes in a storage facility in Houston, most of my belongings were recently retrieved--the majority of which are books.  I had paired down my possessions to a minimum a few years ago, having moved into a furnished house, so I had virtually nothing in the way of furniture--the life …

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Activity and Merit

As brought to my attention in a post yesterday at the Daily Nous, the "party philosopher" of the German nationalist party Alternative für Deutschland, Marc Jongen, was invited to speak at "Crises of Democracy: Thinking in Dark Times", a conference hosted by the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College.  Jongen seems like not only a curious …

The Burden of Being

As part of my morning reading, I came across this article by David Benatar, "Kids? Just say no" on Aeon Magazine.  I must be something of a masochist, because I read the entire piece.  In short, the article is a utilitarian argument against procreation because life is more bad than good--an argument that Benatar has evidently …

In the Public Eye

For all the countless hours I have spent writing posts online, very seldom have I done so in a highly public fashion.  My disposition is a very private one, and for recognition I have always trusted in the merit of my work.  What I have come to realize over the past two years on the academic job market, however, is that--given how overcrowded academia is, relative to the number of open jobs--I will need actively to show the merit of my work, and not just anticipate it being discovered on its own.