An obliquely Christmas-related predictably 'seasonal' sort of communication to some people to whom I'm especially grateful...
Yes. That's you, especially the brilliant writers and full subscribers
Everyone’s inbox is already full of Christmas-related (or Hanukkah-ish) things, so one more can’t hurt.
It won't be long and involved, because I'm winding down for a day or three.
Rarely Certain sort of found itself this year and attracted some full subscribers.1 I also enjoyed writing it much more than in the first six months. A year ago I was contemplating abandoning it altogether. Reflecting on that now, I'm glad I didn't.
There are a number of people to thank for this decision.
They were the ones who inspired me to explore, think wider, introduced me to new ideas or offered fresh perspectives on old ones.
It can be lonely having no 'philosophers' in one's immediate personal orbit. No one with whom to headfuck the really unconventional or weirdly alternative. But I found some here and they led or pointed to others, whether or not they knew it.
RC may continue to morph in 2023 into a more philosophy-shaped thing. I grew tired this year of scoffing at the crazymaking quality of identity discourse, despairing at the double-standards of establishment (often US) liberalism, the uselessness of national leaders, the religiously-tinged fixation on reductionist 'enlightenment' materialism and credentialism and all the usual things it’s easy to complain about.
Banging on endlessly on those subjects is great for attracting large audiences who love being reminded how right they are on basic principles, but it rarely leads to any fresh insights.
So, as those of us who celebrate these days that follow the Winter Solstice for whatever reason try to wind down a bit, these are my beacons for finding intellectual nourishment.
They're a strange and disparate bunch, really. Which has always been how I roll. Give me the outsiders and I'll show you the future cult heroes.
This list is not intentionally ordered.
I often think about the writing of
and the lovely exchanges we shared on the notion of demons actually existing in some way, beyond the imagination.I'm eager to share soon some further thoughts on this subject, flowing from a recently flowering interest in the science and philosophy of consciousness. He (I assume they're a he) made that happen and I'm grateful.
The writing of
is hard to categorise. Jay Rollins is evidently a misfit, with a fine mind, weird interests and a very cool serial novel spooling out most weeks.Another of those kind of writers is
, who blends entertaining grumbles about the usual suspects with real world vignettes and portraits of living the farming life.I don't always think all the same things that these people think. It doesn't matter, because it's nourishing to read their work for its own sake. Not for the way it might massage my own priors.
's writing introduced me to the philosophy of René Girard and the concept of mimetic desire.For someone dispositionally somewhat repelled by the idea of aligning with 'the crowd' (thanks, dead parents, for so insistently instructing me never to fit in) mimetic theory made instant sense. His book 'Wanting' waits on my Kindle.
Doubtless reading that will make me yet more insufferable, which I celebrate.
He beat me to talking about Transactional Analysis but I won't hold that against
. His explorations of human nature are fresh, accessible and supplemented with plenty of further rabbit hole material. He also invented the so obviously really a thing concept of Luxury Beliefs.2Because the strangely unhealthy culture we inhabit is so heavily sponsored by Americans in academia and media - and mostly reacted to by Americans in American media - it can be frustratingly difficult to find British commentators in the field. I've never felt let down by the only Welsh Substacker I'm aware of,
.He's a brave academic who survived some quite nasty attempts to silence him for terrible thoughts that are just ordinary thoughts shared are shared by most people.
Pursuing scholarship while in possession of independent thoughts is a crime in many British students' eyes. Thanks for that, 'murca.
Lofty is the word to describe much of the writing of
. It's pointless to single one piece out and you should just go there. Meta-cultural pattern identification is his thing. Expect long pieces that can stretch to more than an hour of reading.Philosophy, big pattern identification and daring to explore the 'spiritual' as we spin out of control towards our transhuman machine future is the oeuvre you'll find in
.This is grand but helpful writing. I haven't forgotten the moment when Paul Kingsnorth became a full subscriber to Rarely Certain. That makes him the highest profile example of someone described in the sub-heading to this piece.
Man cannot live on lofty (it's an under-appreciated word imo) writings alone, so I love the almost spartan and pithy portraits of places, things and times published by
. A tonic for this often slightly feverish brain.Doubtless I'll kick myself moments after publishing, for forgetting someone.
Ah, yes. here’s one.
I've now discovered that, despite being impractical with my hands (I am 95+% incapable of mentally manipulating the geometrical properties of almost any physical object) I discovered that long descriptions of smithing make therapeutic reading.
makes knives and other (usually) potentially deadly objects at home and writes all about it.ÂI imagine that I’m appreciating his flow state almost as if I were experiencing it. He is also an economist and, as it happens, another massive conservative whereas I'm virtually a Marxist,3 so there you go. Perhaps I really should block these people. Note to self; do better.
There are bound to be others, but dinner isn't going to make itself.
Thank you to the writers and readers who make life here more rewarding in some way, every day.
Without you...etc.
It wouldn't be Christmas without some music.
You know how we spend so much time reading or talking about how shit everything is nowadays?
It really isn't, you know.
When I was very much younger, now that was shit. We had this on peak time Christmas television.4
Also. That 'all night' refrain, while she's sending everyone packing. Irony was invented in 1983.
This new media empire passed the $1,000 dollar subscription revenue milestone a few weeks ago. Nowhere near a living income, but it’s a start.
Credit where due. I didn't first hear about Luxury Beliefs from Henderson. It was mentioned by a Substack reader called 'Clever Pseudonym' with whom I enjoy regular banter. Mostly this consists in me urging them to start a Substack and them politely thanking me and never starting a Substack. A commenter on others' writing par excellence and a source of many inspirations here.
I'm not really a Marxist. I've been reading some original Marx lately, though. And I constantly lament the Leftish's abandoning of Marx's ideas of emancipation through material means in favour of cultural emancipation by forcing everyone to really love each other and especially love the people who are most unlike you, if you're part of the nasty, brutish, stupid working class who make and deliver everyone's lovely stuff. It's just that saying you're a Marxist is still a vaguely edgy and amusing ice-breaker. I might be a Marxist one day, though. Or not. IDK.
It's a measure of how many things have changed for the good that I became increasingly pissed off that the director of this execrable 'number' so obviously considered the black kids less worthy of camera attention. That shit can fuck right off and I'm glad to live in a world where I notice this. However overcooked anti-racism has become, actual racism is shit.
Sooner or later everyone gets to the bottom of the barrel!
Gud Jul!
I've been a reader of yours through the latter half of 2022 (directed here by the Wonderland Rules, I believe), but never much of a commenter because I don't often feel like I have much worth contributing to your already exhaustively-circumspect takes on... pretty much everything. While my own epistemological/ideological uncertainty tends to make me mute, you have a way of not only putting that experience to words, but managing to turn it into something with utility--a tool for navigating the culture in a highly chaotic state.
Thanks for filling that niche, which I've been searching for for a long time. I'm glad that this year has brought you deserved readership, and I hope 2023 is looking even better.