The Joy of Curmudgeonry

Decency, modesty, thoughtfulness, let alone conscientiousness or nobility — these are not qualities one might typically expect from a journa...

Someone who seems to know hardly the first thing about genetics sees fit to give us a lecture thereon: The problem is that there is no such ...

“There is ground for declaring that modern man has become a moral idiot. So few are those who care to examine their lives, or to accept the ...

“ TIME ’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.” [1] How flattering! Or do they mean some other person ? [1] Lev Grossman, “ Person of the Ye...

Much of the trouble with liberty comes from the difficulty that people have in appreciating that the right to act like a rotter does not mea...

Many have devised for themselves an additional criterion of knowledge: that it may not offend their sensibilities or disturb their repose.

It seems incredible to suggest that there are people who think it wrong for parents to want what is best for their children, that is, wrong ...

“I always get a satirical delight in seeing a philosopher suffering from a tooth-ache”. [1] ..... “For there was never yet philosopher That ...

Falsity easily grows into absurdity; for, through a surfeit of pride, we make ever greater mistakes in order that we remain consistent with ...

A great many certificates of education bear testimony to our society’s wish to have the ignorant feel better about themselves.

Coming to accept the adverse consequences of his most strongly professed ideas is a difficult task for many an intellectual, not least when ...

Pyrrho of Elis professed to believe that nothing could be known, and accordingly the only proper attitude to take towards life was that of a...

We ought to consider that some ideals become outmoded, not because society has progressed beyond them, but because so few men are able to li...

Perhaps the artificial intelligences of the future will turn the tables on humanity and institute an inversion of the Turing Test: a compute...

Without care or discrimination, a man may find himself competing to be the greatest in all manner of things — even in stupidity.

When a man proceeds rationally from his values, he must always guard against a fallacy that often arises therewith: that those values are ma...