The "Strange Doctrines" Undercroft

Daily Affirmations

Spurgeon said that by perseverance the snail reached the ark.

On the other hand, by sluggish pace most snails get squashed underfoot.

Still, what else is a snail to do?

Give Me Prozac or Give Me Death

I have suffered major depression more than once in my life, and periodically have to fend off its recalcitrant attempts to recrudesce. So far, so good.

Because of my experience, though, I am chagrined when I see the disease identified (as it often is in this or that popular periodical, book or movie) as a font of creativity. Cf. Van Gogh, we are urged; if he had had access to SSRIs, why, we'd have been denied Starry Night!

Well, rest assured, dear readers--we really don't have to ask human beings to forfeit their minds to insanity so that we can look at pretty pictures. Did SSRIs actually inhibit Van Gogh's creativity, we'd still have Mona Lisa (inter caetera) to gander at, and Vincent's life wouldn't have been an existential nightmare besides.

In any case, as Peter Kramer's new book Against Depression shows, the whole premise underlying the above-criticized line of reason is completely misbegotten. As this New York Times review puts it:

Forget the persistent myth of depression as a source of artistry, soulfulness and rebellion. Depression doesn't fan creative flames. It is photophobic and anhedonic and would rather just drool in the dark.

In other words, if Van Gogh had had Prozac or some other suitable medication, we'd have had more than just Starry Night, and (what's more) Van Gogh's life would have been filled with meaning for him and not just for us.

Something to Believe In

A religious person discerns my disbelief in God and asks: "Well then what do you believe in?"

My answer: "Everything."

What, Me Worry?

If there is no meaning in the universe, than nothing matters--including the fact that nothing matters.

So you might as well do the things that matter to you.

Delusions of the Fittest

From Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene (as quoted in this article on evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers):

[If deceipt] is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray-by the subtle signs of self-knowledge-the deception being practiced.

We fool ourselves, the better to fool others.

A Different Kind of Transcendental Argument

If there is deity that completely transcends human understanding, no human could understand enough about that deity to believe in it.

Self Esteem

Self esteem should be reserved for those who are worthy of it.

New Year's Resolution

So often people make New Year's Resolutions that are just too ambitious, that really are impossible to live by. I do not want to fall into this trap.

Therefore, my New Year's Resolution this year is to endeavor to make each New Year's Resolution in the years to come more practical.

Mundane Aretaicisms

It's important always to strive for excellence. Particularly if you are bound to be mediocre.

On the "Takedown"

Obviously, there are conditions under which the takedown has quite a lot of social utility. For instance, when it's directed at specific individuals who are, or hold themselves out as, experts and who commit professional malpractice, or when it's directed at anyone who practices serial intellectual dishonesty, these vicious smackdowns at least potentially have the salutary effect of inducing shame.

I'd want to go even further and argue that the takedown is often to be preferred over neutral critique. Some arguments are beyond the pale, and a takedown signals this much better than civil engagement. No need to lend a patina of legitimacy to an illegitimate argument.

On the other hand, many, and probably most, takedowns aren't limited to the appropriate conditions. Instead, they are loosed merely because, alas, the writer has developed a tasted for invective. And that ain't right.

As Martin Amis put it:

Enjoying being insulting is a youthful corruption of power.  You lose your taste for it when you realize how hard people try, how much they mind, and how long they remember.

Of course, Amis is just an effete know-nothing, so he would say that.