Civilization is a ‘defense against nature’. This is Camille Paglia’s central premise, but her focus tends more toward natural disasters than to the actual animal kingdom. ‘Civilized man’, she writes, ‘conceals from himself the extent of his subordination to nature. The grandeur of culture, the consolation of religion absorb his…

As summer approaches and temperatures rise, there is a noticeable increase in criminal activity. We’ve always known that the sun influences mood and energy, but this is usually attributed to the heat, which causes discomfort and agitation. But what if we are being influenced not just by the heat, but…

The West is heir to a dual inheritance: the Greco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian. In defining the ‘idea of Europe’, George Steiner writes that it derives from this ‘primordial duality’, from Athens and Jerusalem: This relationship, at once conflictual and syncretic, has engaged European theological, philosophic and political argument from the…

In a previous post, I argued that vampirism is, essentially, supernatural narcissism. This was confirmed for me in the recent film Renfield — where Count Dracula’s lackey attends a Narcissist Support Group for his ‘toxic relationship’: For Dracula to get to ‘full power’, he requires victims — just like real narcissists. The film begins with one co-dependent describing their abuser as a ‘monster’ — which, as the film demonstrates, is not an exaggeration. For individuals in these sorts of relationships, their displeased partner can truly become monstrous.

God is not dead, as Nietzsche famously proclaimed, nor is he sleeping or dormant; he persists, active within the very institutions that were supposed to have committed the deicide (the god-killing); science and atheism. As Stephen C. Meyer outlines in Return of the God Hypothesis, science-based skepticism is often cited…

“If a man who thinks he is a king is mad, a king who thinks he is a king is no less so.” – Jacques Lacan Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is part of a long line of fictional depictions of the ‘Mad King George’ (also known as the ‘Last…

Michel Houellebecq has a complicated relationship with Islam. In 2001, during a press-run for his fourth novel, Platform, Houellebecq famously referred to Islam as ‘the stupidest religion’. For this comment, Houellebecq was accused of inciting racial hatred and faced up to 18 months in jail. However, in 2002, he was…

Friedrich Hölderlin was a German poet and philosopher whom Martin Heidegger referred to as ‘the poet of poetry’. But while he was well-known for his work, he is perhaps best-known for his insanity — what he would call his divine madness — which consumed the second half of his life. …

In Dante’s Divine Comedy, within the second circle of hell, an ‘infernal tempest’ ‘rends and roils the spirits with its force’. …