Politicians, generals, corporate directors, and ordinary men and women had a direct relationship to the evils of the twentieth century. Individuals, soldiers, CEOs, and government administrators did various things that we can now recognize as fundamentally evil. So we might be tempted to summarize the evils of the past as "large numbers of people doing inexcusable things …
How will Russia’s fascist aggression end?
Ukraine has demonstrated a truly singular level of competence and commitment in its armed resistance to Russia's war since February 24. Much credit goes to President Zelenskyy. And much of the world -- including especially the NATO partners -- have been decisive and forthcoming in material support for Ukraine's ability to continue to resist, and …
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Incitement of violence by far-right media networks
The sickening tragedy of Buffalo yesterday -- the racist attack on a group of African-American shoppers and workers by an 18-year-old white supremacist man in body armor, carrying a military-style weapon -- is simply too much to absorb. This is indisputably an act of domestic terrorism; and yet our police and federal counter-terrorism agencies are …
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Злі наслідки тоталітарних ідеологій
[This entry provides Ukrainian and Russian translations of a recent post on totalitarian evil offered as a gesture of support for potential Ukrainian readers. The translation is based on Google Translate. If you are in Ukraine or Russia, please comment if you can...] Очевидно, що люди створюють зло; але людьми часто керують тоталітарні ідеології, які роблять можливим …
Evil consequences of totalitarian ideologies
It is evident that human beings create evil; but human beings are often driven and dominated by totalitarian ideologies that make great evils possible. One of those ideologies of the last century was Stalinism — the view that the success of Soviet Communism is the highest good; any sacrifice is justified; those who stand in …
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Tolstoy’s characterization of Napoleon as lawless brigand (Putin)
One of Leo Tolstoy's characteristic beliefs about history in War and Peace is the idiocy of the notion of "great men" who make history. In this light his characterization of Napoleon as a lawless, aimless, and murderous brigand is revealing. And his description is oddly striking when we consider the current world's tinpot Napoleon seeking dominion over …
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Tolstoy’s philosophy of history
Isaiah Berlin's essay The Hedgehog and the Fox is a particularly interesting combination of philosophical analysis and literary criticism. Berlin is a brilliant interpreter of nineteenth-century Russian thought, and Tolstoy's War and Peace is one of the most important novels of that period. In "The Hedgehog and the Fox" Berlin provides a close study of the philosophy of history …
Can Nietzsche support a decent political philosophy?
Nietzsche's anti-moralism is a key theme in his philosophy and civilizational criticism. He regarded traditional European morality as "herd morality", the deplorable consequence of Christian values of subordination and ressentiment. It is hard enough to find in Beyond Good and Evil or Genealogy of Morals a basis for criticizing even the most grotesque examples of interpersonal brutality and violence, and …
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Realism about social entities
Critical realism depends on the key notion that sociologists are justified in construing their statements about social entities as real, objective features of the social world — “intransitive” objects, in Bhaskar’s somewhat idiosyncratic vocabulary. But does a realist ontology actually require this assumption? Or are there realist interpretations of sociological theory that do not “reify” …
Machiavelli and the totalitarian state
Isaiah Berlin's essay on Machiavelli in Against the Current is penetrating and detailed, valuable both for the specialist and the general philosophical reader. Berlin demonstrates an uncanny knowledge of the range of interpretations and criticisms that have been offered for the ideas presented in The Prince and the many wildly contradictory interpretations that have arisen. Was Machiavelli an amoral …
Understanding Society 