[lbo-talk] Straussian moralist as high rolling gamber

[andie nachgeborenen]

The funny thing is when the esotertic teaching is exposed. Strauss claimed that God is in fact dead, nihilism reigns, there is no truth, and all the excesses of vilgar Nietzscheanism are permitted. But the hoi poloi cannot bear this teaching -- it would be bad for them, they'd expend their energies in a frenzy of sex, drugs, and rock n roll instead of toiling for their betters in a properly puritanical way. So _of course_ Bennett doeswn't think gambling (or, for that matter, parricide and incest) is wrong. Nothing is wrong! (For him.) He cannot, however, consistent with Strauss, say, Well _I'm_ special and you're not. So he flounders and flops like a fish on the hook. It is delightful to see. jks

Ian Murray <seamus2001 at attbi.com> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Pollak" 


> I'm not sure I do either. He says it's never been secret and he's
> declared all his winnings and losings to the IRS. He was quoted in 1995
> in the Las Vegas Review-Journal of all places saying, "I've played poker
> all my life and I shouldn't be on my high horse about it." That seems
> pretty straightforward to me.
>
> Just because you're a moralist doesn't mean you think everything is
> immoral. Bennett says he's never considered drinking, smoking or
gambling
> to be sins in themselves. I agree with him, and so presumably does
> everyone on this list. So where's the crime? High stakes poker is
legal
> in modern casino America.
>
> Unless there turns out to be tax fraud or some hidden family suffering
> here, the hypocrisy seems to me to be entirely on our side. It's like
> we're more Catholic than the Pope.
>
> Michael

=======================

WB's vulgar Thomism combined with a "libertarianism for me but not for
thee" hypocrisy, is, in a lot of peoples minds, rooted in the manner of
his arbitrary and question begging denouncements of people who smoke pot
at Phish concerts etc. Rhetorically, there is no crime. The problem is the
capriciousness and authoritarianism of the law in sculpting social norms
regarding the hedonic aspects of human culture and his cognitive
contortions to apologize for and obfuscate them. Maybe his kids will hook
up with Ted Koppel's son to learn the arts of hedonic abandon.............

Ian

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