Author: Butler Shaffer

My interest in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol began one Christmas eve when, as a small child, my parents turned on network radio to listen to what, even then, had become a classic Christmas eve festivity: Lionel Barrymore’s presentation of the Dickens story. Radio was a medium that required the imagination to paint scenes far more colorful, and to concoct monsters far scarier, than anything motion pictures or television have ever been able to present. With radio, the listener was the stage designer, costumer, and location director. In later years, I watched Alistair Sim’s movie version of the story – … Continue reading →

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Ghosties and ghoulies, three-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night. –    From old Scottish poem For almost my entire life, my favorite holiday has been Halloween, a preference having nothing to do with “trick-or-treating” nor dressing up in costumes. What has long attracted me to the All Saints’ Eve festivities is the fact that my participation was without parental supervision. Kids trick-or-treated with their friends or, as seen in the 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis, older siblings escorted the younger ones. Any self-respecting child would have been humiliated to have his or her parents accompany them. … Continue reading →

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What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It’s not good at much else. – Tom Clancy …than modern politicians in at least one respect: these ancient tyrants made no pretense of being the agents of those over whom they ruled. They established their vicious authority in the same way all political systems of power are created: by violent conquest. Men and women obeyed these thugs for one reason: the fear that their defiance would result in instant death. Despots gradually realized that their power over others could be made more secure by convincing … Continue reading →

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  In America you can say anything you want, as long as it doesn’t have any effect. – Paul Goodman The vacuity of serious thought in America is revealed in so many instances that it is difficult to put together a top-ten list of candidates. Among the fatuous contenders is that involving the question of whether NFL players should stand for the playing of the national anthem. Not since the 1988 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush focused on the sanctity of the Pledge of Allegiance to satisfy members of the boobeoisie to elect him president, has so much mental energy … Continue reading →

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     Even the most piddling life is of momentous consequence to its owner. – James Walcott Why do those of us who distrust the state do so? Is it because having read the writings of others who embraced ideas of peace, liberty, and individualism helped focus our thinking? But why did we favor John Locke and John Stuart Mill over Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo Machiavelli; and why were we more persuaded by the logical reading of Ayn Rand than that of Karl Marx? When we began to modify our opinions about these and other thinkers, along with developing our own views, … Continue reading →

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Once again, the unpredictable and uncontrollable forces of chaos have revealed themselves, this time in Las Vegas, a city that thrives on the unforeseeable nature of gambling. As we have come to expect, members of the mainstream media, politicians, and other apostles for the established order, were quick to remind Boobus Americanus not to lose faith in the power of political systems to bring mankind to order. Again, we hear the endless recitation of the mantra that follows the failures of political intervention to achieve its promised expectations: “we will find out what went wrong and fix it so this … Continue reading →

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Philosophy is perfectly right in saying that life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other clause – that it must be lived forward. – Soren Kierkegaard Allegedly the most powerful curse ever uttered is this: “may you live in interesting times; and may you attract the attention of those in power.” Historians identify previous periods in which such “interesting times” can be found, but the present tumult in which we find ourselves also qualifies. Unlike cousins from other species who depend upon an abundance of instincts to guide their behavior, we humans must rely upon our conscious and … Continue reading →

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“Who are you?” – The Caterpillar, in Lewis Carroll’s, Alice in Wonderland As the American franchise of Western Civilization tumbles into the dust-bin of history, I sometimes wonder whether – were it possible – the ghosts of Jefferson, Franklin, Sam Adams, and other “Founding Fathers,” might be willing to engage in a conversation over what they helped to create. There has probably been no comparable group of such intelligent, well-educated, creative, prescient minds that has tried to design the foundations of a free and orderly political society. These men were the best for which any nation could hope. The first question I … Continue reading →

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War is like a big machine that no one really knows how to run and when it gets out of control it ends up destroying the things you thought you were fighting for, and a lot of other things you kinda forgot you had. – Anonymous . When I discuss with others the idea of living in a peaceful, stateless world, I am most frequently asked: “but what about national defense? What if the Chinese, or North Korean, or an aggressive Islamic state, wanted to invade America, destroy our way of life, and enslave us to their regime? How might … Continue reading →

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 The salvation of the world consists in the salvation of the individual soul. – Carl Jung Whether you believe that Western Civilization is dead, or only in a state of irreversible entropy, it should be evident that much of our culture no longer serves the interests of human beings. The major cause, which may lead to the extinction of our species, is found in our willingness to identify with abstractions which, by their very nature, reside beyond ourselves. Whether we find our identities in our race, gender, age, ideologies and other belief systems, nationality, economic interests, political parties, social/political causes, or … Continue reading →

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The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy our capacity to form any. – Hannah Arendt Were you truly surprised by the shooting of Republican congressmen as they practiced for a baseball game? Why? Was it that members of the ruling Establishment – rather than persons attending a rock concert – were targeted? Or, like so many of your neighbors, did you not see the connections that underlie processes of causation?  The Establishment’s mainstream media bullhorns were quick to explain the cause of the attacks as the availability of guns. You know, just like suicide-bomber … Continue reading →

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“There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance.”  – Wolfgang von Goethe                 Growing up in Nebraska, I was delighted each September, when the State Fair opened. I enjoyed walking the midway – accompanied by the spirit of P.T. Barnum – listening to sideshow barkers peddling their shows for “just ten cents, one thin dime.” Bearded and tattooed ladies, two-headed calves, and fortune-tellers were among the offerings. With last week’s closing of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, a significant part of American culture has disappeared: circuses and carnivals. With the exception of 1950s era network television circuses, these … Continue reading →

The post The Freak Show That Never Leaves Town appeared first on LewRockwell.

They were so strong in their beliefs that there was a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness.  – Louise Erdrich As Western Civilization continues its entropy-riddled dance of death, the citadels of the political establishment help to maintain the carnival sideshow nature of the event. Like a recently beheaded chicken that flaps about in a bloody show, driven not by the mind but by automatic reflexes, there is little in our culture’s demise that would appeal to intelligent men and women. Those who once turned to Abbott and Costello … Continue reading →

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The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops – no, but the kind of man the country turns out. – Ralph Waldo Emerson In case any reader still clings to the platitude that the American political system is based on the proposition that ours is “a society of laws, and not of men,” I urge you to pay close attention to the events of recent years. Political behavior does not exist in abstractions, such as the “state,” or the “government,” or a “constitution,” but is activity engaged in by such men and … Continue reading →

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“There is no there there.” – Gertrude Stein The study of history has long been an enjoyable activity for me. A conclusion I have drawn from it has been that civilizations are created by individuals; they are destroyed by collectives. One can see such dynamics at work in what has been taking place in recent decades in the collapse of a once life-sustaining Western Civilization. I have discussed this process in previous articles, as well as in two of my books: Boundaries of Order, and The Wizards of Ozymandias. What began as the creation of values that enhance and celebrate … Continue reading →

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