The Grand Inquisitor on the Nature of Man: Totalitarian vs. Liberty
But it is Thyself Thou hast to thank. Under our rule and sway all will be happy, and will neither rebel nor destroy each other as they did while under Thy free banner. Oh, we will take good care to…
Politics, Politicians, and Demonic Possession
“One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist: another, perhaps equally fatal, is to make them fancy that he is obliged to stand quietly by, and not to meddle with…
Virtue Leadership and Power
“Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on—it isn’t manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent, and such…
Standards are the Raw Materials of Virtue: He Who Controls the Standards, Controls Behavior
In one sense, virtue is how a society controls and manages behavior. Some systems and societies use virtue to produce beneficent outcomes, while others use virtue, at least as the societal standards define it, to produce power and control. Religions…
Virtue and Pandora’s Box: Effective Policy
I’ve been contemplating virtue quite a bit lately and a comment about the origins of Steampunk. I started reading steampunk well before it was a popular meme. I recall an essay I read on the origins of steampunk and…
Virtue and Operant Conditioning
When my son started optometry school, he heard about a program that helped to pay the costs of books. He went to his counselor to apply for it and was told he did not meet the demographics for the grant.…
Virtue: Honor and Integrity
I had an interesting movement of revelation on two levels as I contemplated the terms “honor” and “integrity”. How are they similar and how are they different? Can you have one without the other? My mind wandered by to a…
Ethics, Morality, and Virtue: Relative vs. Absolute Meaning
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:4 “Then…
Virtue, Wherefore Art Thou?
The rise of Christianity buried pagan philosophy for centuries as Christianity took control of all aspects of western life. But in 1649, the Treaty of Westphalia broke Christianity’s stranglehold on western life. The treaty ended the brutally destructive Thirty Years’…
Virtue: The Missing Enabler of the Republic
“A republic, if you can keep it.” Benjamin Franklin. The blog builds on several others on virtue: Virtue, Wherefore Art Thou? Virtue: honor and Integrity Virtue Leadership and Power Virtue and Courtesy are Requirements for Effective Solution Development and…
