Author Archive

  • Methodological Individualism

    October 1st, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    The term methodological individualism was coined by the Austrian economist and historian Joseph Schumpeter, who also, incidentally, coined the term creative destruction, in reference to the “gales of innovation” which freedom of exchange unleashes. Methodological individualism is another way of saying individualistic method. Both terms denote “a principle of explanation, in which the individual human […]

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  • “Whiskey is Merely Sunshine Held Together by Water”

    September 25th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

      Prelude   It was a mysterious message that started it all: a mistaken text sent to her number in the dead of night, her phone, face-up across her lap, all at once coming to life with a soundless throb of silvery light.  Later, when she shuffled back through the slender deck of cards which […]

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  • Whiskey Wisdom & the Difference Between Dogma & Doctrine

    September 15th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | 5 Comments

    Chapter 36   The difference between dogma and doctrine is the difference between faith and thought. The extent to which an ideological system is taken on faith is the extent to which it is dogmatic. The extent to which an ideological system is by its leaders expected to be taken on faith is the extent […]

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  • Whiskey Wisdom & the Engine of Civilization

    September 14th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    Chapter 9   There is no sort of freedom other than the sort which voluntary exchange brings about. In its truest form, freedom has only one fundamental meaning: it is the absence of force and compulsion, whether that force is direct, as in assault, or indirect, as in extortion. It means only that you are […]

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  • Whiskey Wisdom & the Power to Educate Ourselves

    September 13th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    Most humans don’t think too much about the great problems of existence, concerning which, most behave as most around them behave. Most people perform certain daily acts without paying particular attention to their acts, nor to the ideological theories or hierarchal structures undergirding them. Most people do most things because most people became accustomed throughout […]

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  • The Power of Ideas [addendum]

    September 12th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    It was toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and absturse books of philosophy. Their bread, their work, their private lives began to depend on this or that decision in disuputes on […]

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  • Whiskey Wisdom and Language As Thought

    September 11th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | 2 Comments

    Excerpted from my forthcoming:   Chapter 4   Independent thought is critical thought – it is the critical faculty at its best: the faculty of identification, evaluation, discernment, grasping. Thought, in turn, is accomplished by means of language, which is precisely why the more you understand the words you’re using, the clearer and more streamlined […]

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  • What Is Independent Thinking?

    September 10th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    Excerpted from Chapter 3 of my forthcoming.     Chapter 3 Independent thinking is you, your car, and an auto-mechanic you don’t really know. Independent thinking is you taking your car in for a biannual tune-up, strictly routine. After handing the auto-mechanic your car keys and then waiting in the lobby for approximately five minutes, […]

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  • Whiskey Wisdom & the Actual Truth about Egalitarianism & Inequality

    September 9th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    Excerpted from my forthcoming: Chapter 30 Since humans are each discrete, individuated beings, with a singular consciousness, born into a complex system of nature, humans are because of this infinitely diverse. This is a good thing, and it is a beautiful thing. This infinite diversity means, however, that humans are inherently unequal – in countless […]

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  • Tribalism, Racial Theory, The Individual Human Being

    Tribalism, Racial Theory, The Individual Human Being

    September 8th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | 2 Comments

    Excerpted from my forthcoming: Chapter 12 Tribalism is a form of collectivism, which is a philosophy that denies the primacy of the individual, subordinating her to a so-named collective. Tribalism is the logical result and the logical elaboration of postmodernist irrational philosophy. (Irrationalism is a school of philosophical thought, with a long and varied history.) […]

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  • Christopher Columbus, Howard Zinn, & A People’s History of The United States

    September 7th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    This is excerpted from Chapter 25 of my forthcoming. Chapter 25 Howard Zinn is the author of a cultic classic called A People’s History of the United States, which is a tour-de-force of historical misinformation, sloppy scholarship, and outright prevarications. This perhaps partially explains why on the subject of history and the role of the […]

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  • Whiskey Wisdom and the Quiddity of a Culture

    September 5th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    This is excerpted from Chapter 22 of my forthcoming. Chapter 22   “Every serious civilization, like every serious person, possesses an essence or a spirit,” she said. “A soul, if you like.” Thus spoke the lady political refugee who was standing – and not sitting – at my bar one quiet Tuesday evening. She was […]

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  • A Bartender’s Guide to Liquid Learning

    September 2nd, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    The following is excerpted from my forthcoming. Chapter 1   The art of independent thinking is the art of individual inquiry, and individual inquiry is rooted in observation. When a child learns through personal experience, by bouncing it on a concrete surface, that a properly filled basketball can be dribbled, but then after testing the […]

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  • SARS-CoV-2 And Herd Immunity: One More Time

    August 20th, 2020 | Coronavirus | journalpulp | No Comments

    As many among us stated in the beginning: absent a cure or vaccination, you simply cannot stop the spread of any coronavirus or rhinovirus, novel or non-novel. Nor does the virus get bored or tired and so move on to another planet. This is why I’m posting a recent thread I read (click on each image […]

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  • Individuality

    August 13th, 2020 | Whiskey Wisdom | journalpulp | No Comments

    Thinking and acting are for humans indivisible and inseparable. They can for the purpose of study be broken down into component parts, but in actuality — i.e. in how they function — thinking and acting are entirely unified and symbiotic: two inextricable pieces of an elegantly integrated whole. Thinking and acting are another way of […]

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