Most names are classifications. I window-watch the heaving mass of green and gold and say "tree," and this name places the thing in a mental "class" of similarily heaving objects, the class of "trees." Rock, sling, giant, corpse -- all these "names" are fundamentally classifications, names that allow us to understand a thing by referring to its species. But a personal name does not refer to a species. There is nothing about the name "Michael" that groups its named object into a class.Many n … [Read more...]

Dear Gordon Gee,I understand you are still under fire for referring to Catholics as "those damn Catholics." The Huffington Post, in particular, is indignant that you did not apologize sooner. The Huffington Post is, of course, full of shit, and thus, in contrast to that constantly feigned indignation which exists for the sole purpose of garnering pageviews, I would like to extend my whole-hearted gratitude for your reference to Catholics as "those damn Catholics."I live in a world -- and … [Read more...]

When, in a moment of absentmindedness, I practice a virtue, my reaction to the fact is not that "I'm being good," but "Oh, so this is how it is." Before the moment of virtue -- be it patience or prudence -- I stumbled blindly without knowing my blindness. In the light of virtue the universe is illuminated and what was obscure makes sense. Virtue reveals the very consistency of existence.The virtues are not additions to life, supplementary goodies we tack onto our behavior -- they are modes of … [Read more...]

It is a trend for white people fed up with the banality of existence to run to exotic locations and there write best-selling books about finding themselves. And while I admit to a certain romance in spending thousands learning to eat, pray, love, and afterwards become rich selling the simplicity of foreign cultures back to our own, I can't help but wonder whether the "self" is really "found" in such amazing, caucasian explorations. I wonder -- because I'm cynical -- if the self hasn't been … [Read more...]