ARTICLES ARCHIVE

 

You can find a complete listing of all the articles on this site here. They are listed in reverse chronological order, and are all clickable links. Twenty-five articles are displayed per page, with the publication date included. To find older articles, click on the page numbers at the bottom.

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  • You Will Never Reach The End-Zone

    Some want to reach a point of victorious finality.  They want to enter the end-zone of the football field, slam the ball down, and celebrate.  Finally, they say, I have arrived! I have made it, they bray.  I can now coast a little, they assure us.  Listen to these asses bray, bray, bray. I can…

  • I Won’t Go Back To Nature

    There is this entire literature of sentimentalizing the soil, and Nature in general.  Sentimentalizing the brute labor required to fructify the soil.  Think of Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Rousseau, Emerson, Thoreau.  You know, the whole nineteenth century Romanticism of it all.  I never really liked this impulse, as it always smacked to me of…

  • The Wisdom Of Moderation, And The Danger Of Extremism

    Plutarch’s lives of Phocion and Cato the Younger can be read as case studies on the contrasting features of moderation and extremism. The successful, rational leader will know when to compromise and seek settlements; the extremist will not, and thereby brings himself and others to ruin.

  • Beware The Waters Of Salmacis

    Men take their masculinity too lightly.  That is, they do not value that which makes them men.  They are too eager to minimize its power, to dull its sheen, and to snuff out its distinct phosphorescence. What one does not value, is not safeguarded from outside attack.

  • A Professional Translator Shares His Thoughts

    [A reader of Stoic Paradoxes contacted me recently and shared some of his experiences and adventures gained from many years of translating.  I told him that his ideas would make for a great guest post here. His language is expertise is Japanese, a language that I am not proficient in.  But it is interesting that…

  • My Own Ten Commandments

    I was having a chat with some friends recently about some aspects of life.  It gave me the opportunity to express my thoughts on one or two subjects.  Let me tell you more about it.

  • A Passage From Plutarch’s “Life of Timoleon”

    Here is a morsel to chew on. I was reading a bit of Plutarch this morning and came across a passage that is worth sharing.  It is from the Life of Timoleon (6):

  • Aldus Manutius: The First Great Publisher In History

    We take so much for granted today about printed books.  The wisdom of the ages can be captured and preserved for costs that are so low as to almost negligible.  Save for the surfeit of information that currently exists, the modern man has no excuse not to be reasonably acquainted with his heritage. It was…

  • Stoic Paradoxes Is Now Available

    My third book, Stoic Paradoxes, is now available on Amazon.   It is offered in both Kindle edition and in paperback.  Click on the cover image above. I wanted to use this post to explain what the book is about, and why it is an important addition to the literature on Stoicism.

  • The Luckiest Man On The Face Of The Earth

    I have a close friend who knows a great deal about the game of baseball.  I always defer to his knowledge in discussions of the sport.  We were recently talking about the relative merits of modern ball players when compared to the great figures of earlier generations.  It is a debate that has no end,…

  • Jack London Sails Across The Pacific

    Readers no doubt are familiar with Jack London.  One of the great 20th century American novelists and short-story writers, he is justly famous for his harrowing tales of survival and courage, often set in exotic locales like the Klondike, the South Seas, and the abysses of urban squalor. He lived a life that was as adventurous…

  • Simon Murray: Legionnaire

    I have recently finished reading Simon Murray’s memoir of his life in the French Foreign Legion, which is titled simply Legionnaire: Five Years in the French Foreign Legion.  First published in 1978, it was recently reissued in 2006 as a mass market paperback.

  • Justinian’s Codification Of The Law

    Great men make laws, and greater men interpret them. If a leader wishes to achieve immortality, let him organize, arrange, and codify a body of law for his people.  Many of the greatest leaders (Numa Pompilia, Lycurgus, Solon, etc.) have been lawgivers.  The monuments of stone have crumbled, but the laws remain. To codify is to bestow…

  • The Importance Of Linguistic Nationalism

    I read this weekend an article in the BBC that I interpreted as a good thing.  The article was discussing a recent decision of Pakistan’s Supreme Court to replace English with Urdu as the official language. I should say at the outset here that I have never been to Pakistan and know nothing about its…

  • How A Rogue Can Take Over A Village

    I was talking to a friend earlier today, and the conversation happened to be diverted into the topic of hucksters, pitch-men, and carnival-barkers. After thinking about the conversation, my mind wandered off to some of the late-night “pitch-man” advertising I had seen years ago.

  • A Tale Of Grapes And Greed

    The Sufi order called Qadiri was founded by Abdul Qadir Gilani Al Amoli (1077–1166).  He was born at Nif, which lies to the south of the Caspian Sea.  The Qadiriyya Order is a large one and has many adherents in the Islamic world. There is a teaching story that I came across recently that reminded…

  • You Need To Think Hard About Your Educational Choices

    I wanted to write something in response to some recent articles and commentary I’ve seen from colleagues and friends of mine.  It concerns the subject of college. Much of this recent commentary, while well-meaning and making valid points, nevertheless paints a picture that is in need of qualification. So I wanted to share my thoughts. Is…

  • Jacopo Zabarella On The Advancement Of Learning

    We do not often think about how knowledge is gained or transmitted.  We simply take it for granted that some idea or morsel of information crosses our path, which we then incorporate into our storehouse of knowledge. Or do we?  Is this really how information is, or should be, passed on?

  • The Fall Of Queen Amalasuntha

    Here is a good story of palace intrigue and conspiracy.  We turn our attention to late antiquity, to the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. Amalasuntha (c. 495-535) was the daughter of Ostrogothic King Theoderic the Great.  When Theoderic died, his grandson Athalaric nominally became king.  But being a child, the real power lay with his mother Amalasuntha,…

  • Six Men’s Health Topics You Should Know Something About

    I was talking to my father on the phone earlier today.  He was telling me that he had been speaking recently to another man he knew.  It had been a sad conversation with this friend of his. This man had suddenly discovered he had serious health problems.  Basically, he found out that he had prostate…

  • Guidelines On The Proper Delivery Of A Speech

    I had conducted many jury trials in state court before my first jury trial in federal court.  One of the differences in federal court was that the attorneys had the ability, after the trial was over, to review the written critiques that the jurors had left behind.

  • The Scheming And Ruthless Antonina

    In a previous article here we recounted the dramatic fall of one of the Emperor Justinian’s venal officials, John of Cappadocia.  The key roles of this drama were the Empress Theodora and her amoral compatriot Antonina (c. 484-565), the wife of Belisarius.  It is now time to relate yet more adventures of this depraved yet…

  • The Story Of John The Cappadocian: Schemes And Intrigues In The Palace

    The Emperor Justinian (A.D. 485-565) and his wife, the Empress Theodora, are well-known sovereigns of the eastern Roman Empire.  The absolute power which centered around the throne at this period in history encouraged palace intrigues of all sorts, and their reign was no exception.  One of the more interesting stories of betrayal and revenge during…

  • The Conquest Of Anxiety And Fear

    The foremost lesson of philosophy should be the lesson of perspective.  When I say perspective, I mean the different interpretation of events that can be given from viewing the matter from different vantage points. What we think is a product of our relative position to an issue. You say to me, how oppressed I am…

  • A Few Bits Of Wisdom From The Poet Claudian

    Long poems generally bore me.  Even the most eloquent verses, stacked up on each other at great length, can wear on the reader.  Perhaps every long poem is best digested as a series of short poems, read at one’s leisure.  No one ever wished a long poem to be longer. In this spirit, I will…

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Original copy of Cicero’s De Officiis (On Duties) published in Holland in 1642.  From the collection of Fortress of the Mind.