Nobody Cares About Philosophy

Innula Zenovka · Jan 23, 2026

The Veep, the Mogul and the Antichrist

The strange intellectual origins of the new Trumpism

davidaaronovitch.substack.com

Evernote Link because paywall

An extremely long article on St Irenaeus of Lyons, Peter Thiel, Nazi lawyer Carl Schmitt, Renee Girard, JD Vance and many many more ...

Kamilah Hauptmann · Feb 26, 2026

Veritable Quandry said:
The heroine of Atlas Shrugged is an example of success through the effort of extraordinary people. She inherited a railroad.

That is a massive contradiction. Not only did she not build her business, but there is no industry more reliant on government subsidies and brute force than American railroads. They were granted land and cash to finance construction. The government used eminent domain to clear land, and the US Army to remove Native Americans living along rail routes. They used a combination of police, military, and Pinkerton agents to prevent workers from organizing. No railroad exists because of the effort of an extraordinary individual. The exist because of state corruption, coercion, and murder on a massive scale.

Innula Zenovka · Feb 26, 2026

Kamilah Hauptmann said:

I think there must be some connection between this privileging of the "ideas guy" and the fact so many libertarian manifestos take the form of novels, often science-fiction, which take place in a simplified alternative universe where the author's ideas can be explored without reality's inconvenient restraints.

And even then, of course, the author's (the ideas guy's) ideas would remain unread without the efforts of publishers, printers, manufacturers of paper, ink and printing presses, distributors and booksellers and their staff, and without the whole social apparatus that provides people with both the ability to read and the leisure to read fiction.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

It may seem strange to some man, that has not well weighed these things; that Nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this Inference, made from the Passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by Experience. Let him therefore consider with himselfe, when taking a journey, he armes himselfe, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his dores; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there bee Lawes, and publike Officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall bee done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow Citizens, when he locks his dores; and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words?

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm#link2H_4_0115