Categories
Philosophy

Putin as Historical Blemish

I remember a phrase from Marcus Aurelius in which he asserted that the worst thing a person could do is to make themselves and their lives a kind of blemish upon the world. I have been thinking about this in terms of Vladimir Putin. He is certainly inflicting great savagery and brutal abhorrence upon the […]

Categories
history

The Arc of Autocracy always ends in Ashes

Vladimir Putin is unrepentant in his ways and I doubt that anyone will ever change such a power hungry despot. All those who surround him and enable this reign of terror over their own nation might do very well to question what will happen in a few years when he becomes old, withers and fades […]

Categories
Philosophy

History

Have you noticed that those who make the grandest historical and global assertions of identity and imperialistic might are generally (and self-evidently) driven by the most pitifully base and selfish motivations? In one sense, this is a function of the vast and sprawling networked information and communications systems we inhabit quite naturally and necessarily drifting […]

Categories
Philosophy

Half sunk a shattered visage lies…

The greatest irony of every instance of civilisation collapse has probably never been that it comes without warning or time to avert impending catastrophe, as even then when disaster looms it is never entirely unexpected or unforeseen by those bearing sufficient intellect to observe its impending arrival. It is much more likely that we will […]