History Making

History’s (Non) Meaning

The Origins of Historicism

A Note

The Juggernaut

One of the most pernicious of Man’s near infinite catalogue of delusions is the pernicious notion that “History” has a meaning. That this idea is nonsense that should be allowed to float away on its own vacuous emptiness is rather obvious but the notion has had and will continue to have a truly pernicious effect on human beings, given its effects on how human’s behave.

Oh My Goddess!*

The Great Mother of Teotihuacan

A Note

Near Mexico City is the great ruin of the city of Teotihuacan, which was a major metropolitan centre from c. 0-650 C.E. The city with its quite impressive architecture and its two huge pyramids, one called the pyramid of the Sun, the other the Pyramid of the Moon, has been the object of much speculation and an enormous amount of spade work over the years. One of the perennial questions has been the nature of its chief God. Well it appears we have an answer its chief God was a Goddess.

Serial Killers

Has a Cultural Artifact

Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector
in Silence of the Lambs

We have seen in the last two generations the rise of the serial killer as a cultural artifact. In the past serial killers were fairly rare although it should be noted that crime statistics are historically very unreliable. Now it appears that compared to the past serial killers are no longer rare but “common”. Just why this is so is subject to dispute. What is not in dispute is that serial killers have become part of the very fabric of our society and culture just why that is so and what effects it has on our culture are matters worth exploring.1

That Sinking Feeling

Atlantis Part I

Plato’s Purpose

Destruction of Atlantis

One of the most popular of myths has been Plato’s tale of Atlantis found in two of his dialogues. The dialogues are the Timaeus and the Critias. Both dialogues were written late in Plato’s career as a philosopher and writer. They represent a late development in Plato’s ideas.

Fellow Travelers and Conducted Tours

Moral Cretinism Part X

I have in several previous postings mentioned the various examples of moral cretinism concerning Communism and Stalinism.1 Here I will briefly discuss the phenomena of Stalinist Fellow travelling in the 1930’s and 40’s through a very useful and informative text, The Fellow Travellers.2 The book supplies a gold mine of information about moral corruption and intellectual incompetence.

The Great Peace

The Taiping Rebellion

A Note

Taiping Imperial Seal

In the mid-19^th century China was convulsed by a series of rebellions that almost overthrew the Qing, called by foreigners the Manchu, Dynasty. The most serious of these challenges to Qing rule was the Taping Rebellion that lasted more than 15 years before the last embers were snuffed out. (1850-1866).1

The Bogyman is Coming

German Communists and the German Middle Class

A Note

German Communist Party
Poster

Between 1918 and 1933 Germany was continually torn apart by crisis after crisis. There was at the centre of German political life a sort of hollowness that generated instability. In fact Germany was experiencing for years on end a sort of great fear.

“They Are My Sons!”

Oedipus and His Daughters

Oedipus and his Daughters
at Colonus

In a previous posting I looked at the working of fate in the Theban plays of Sophocles.1 There I looked at Greek ideas concerning fate and how the idea of the “tragic flaw” that dooms the protagonist of Oedipus the King is in itself flawed given that what actually works out in the play is a tragic fate doomed by our protagonist to suffer from before he was born. Here I will examine another aspect of the plays or more specifically the one called Oedipus at Colonus that is Oedipus and his children.