The Catiline Conspiracy

In March of 2016, I was diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma: as a result, I took a medical leave from my PhD program and largely stepped back from the professional field. The following political theory blog is a collection of the miscellaneous thoughts, commentaries and musings I’ve had since my initial diagnosis—personal reflections that fall outside of my formal dissertation/academic work.

Love is Beauty; Beauty is Goodness; Goodness is Truth; Truth lives Forever

List of posts in order of post-date:

1. Edmund Burke on Fear

2. Cassirer, Machiavelli, and Political Myth

3. Thomas Hobbes on Fear

4. Kant and Plato on Rhetoric

5. Faith Hope Love Gala Keynote Speech, 01.26.2019

6. John Locke and John Austin on Language

7. Neoliberalism and the Loss of Glory/Ambition

8. Koselleck and History: Experience, Expectation and the Acceleration of Modernity

9. On Political Judgment/Prudence and Realism

10. Shklar on Fear

11. Sorel on Rhetoric and Myth

12. Nietzsche on Rhetoric

13. Schmitt, Renan, Muller: Defining the “Political”

14. Schmitt and Sorel: Parliamentarism, Liberalism, and Myth

15. Reflections on Democracy and Contingency I: Nietzschean Democracy

16. On Patriotism and False Nations

17. Aphorisms and Misc. Reflections I

18. Trump and the Democratization of Mythmaking

19. On Schiller’s “Aesthetic Education”

20. 1890-2017: Advertising and the Rise of Liberal Judgment

21. On Foucault: Knowledge and the Inescapability of Power

22. Horkheimer, Adorno, and the Myth of Enlightenment

23. On Socrates and Persuasion: A Typography of Listening in Plato’s Republic

24. Kuhn, Wittgenstein, Gintis: Questioning the Paradigm

25. On the Ubermensch: Domination or Self-Erasure

26. On Neoliberalism: “Best Practices” as the Godhead

27. On the Unchangeability of Selves and Narratives

28. On Expectation and Understanding: Intervention and the Unknown

29. “In the Penal Colony”: Kafka on the Ends of Political Tradition

30. Aphorisms and Misc. Reflections II

31. TIME Magazine and AOC: Political PR for a Rising Candidate

32. Wittgenstein and the Politics of Persuasion

33. On Modern Love and Hyper-Revelation: The Bachelor and The Bachelorette

34. On Eric Metaxas: Political Faults and Democratic Conversion

35. Minor Reflections on Judgment I

36. On F. T. Kola’s “In the Garden”: Historical as List

37. On Hannah Pittard: Narrative and Trauma

38. On the Notion of “The Deep” and “Depth”

39. Notes on Ancient Conversion

40. Notes on Scientific “Experiments” and “Experimentation”

41. Notes on Wonder: Shock, Moderation, Transcendence

42. On Fame: Public Pride, Intellectualism, Deliberation

43. Conservatism-as-Monism; Liberalism-as-Pluralism

44. On Making Another “Trip”: Democracy, Homeness, and the Decision

45. On the 2016 Election: Expertise and the Moral Economy of Democracy

46. Aphorisms and Misc. Reflections III

47. On Experts and Judgment: Reality TV

48. On Borochov and Assimilation

49. Aphorisms and Misc. Reflections IV

50. On Modern Love: The Bachelor, Season 21

51. Toward a Philosophy of Design

52. On the Irony of Christian Pride

53. Defining Conservatism

Schmitt, Renan, Muller: Defining the "Political"

William PenningtonSeptember 10, 2020Comment

Nietzsche on Rhetoric

William PenningtonSeptember 10, 2020Comment

Sorel on Rhetoric and Myth

William PenningtonSeptember 10, 2020Comment

Shklar on Fear

William PenningtonSeptember 9, 2020Comment

On Political Judgment/Prudence and Realism

William PenningtonSeptember 9, 2020Comment

Koselleck and History: Experience, Expectation and the Acceleration of Modernity

William PenningtonSeptember 9, 2020Comment

Neoliberalism and the Loss of Glory/Ambition

William PenningtonSeptember 9, 2020Comment

John Locke and John Austin on Language

William PenningtonSeptember 3, 2020Comment

Faith Hope Love Gala Keynote Speech, 01.26.2019

William PenningtonSeptember 3, 2020Comment

Kant and Plato on Rhetoric

William PenningtonAugust 21, 2020Comment

Thomas Hobbes on Fear

William PenningtonAugust 21, 2020Comment

Cassirer, Machiavelli, and Political Myth

William PenningtonAugust 21, 2020Comment

Edmund Burke on Fear

William PenningtonAugust 21, 2020Comment