The Crowhill Journal

After P&C drink and review Poor Righteous from Jailbreak Brewing, they discuss Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky, which has been called the first existentialist novel.

The main character is a miserable creature. He’s smart and well educated, but his social skills and are so bad that his life is a mess. He’s paralyzed by introspection and self doubt, and believes that men of action are only that way because they’re too stupid to think about things as deeply as he does.

The book is divided into two parts. In part one, we hear the older man explaining himself. In part two, we go back to an event in his earlier life that may have contributed to his miserable state.

The themes raised are timely, especially in how they relate to the idea of the perfectibility of man, and the nature / nurture debate.

That’s all I have to say.

RIP, Notorious RBG.

With the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the left has gone apocalyptic and Republicans are trying to say “never mind” about the things they said re: Merrick Garland.

While RBG became a feminist icon later in life, feminists didn’t like her at first, for two reasons: first, her friendship with Scalia, which seemed to throw shade on her liberal credentials, and second, the fact that she transferred to Columbia to accommodate her husband. What a bad, bad thing to do!

P&C review the political circus and talk generally about the Supreme Court.

It’s always interesting to see what does and doesn’t qualify as “diversity.”

As Thomas Sowell said, “The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”

There are any number of characteristics by which you can divide people. When it comes to the Supreme Court, people talk about liberal vs. conservative, male vs. female and black vs. white, and every once in a while they’ll talk about the religion of the justices, but why don’t they talk about diversity in law schools?

Harvard dominates, especially recently. I don’t think that’s a good thing.

FWIW, Amy Coney Barrett studied at Notre Dame.

P&C drink and review Old Pro, a Gose from Union Brewing. Then they discuss crazy people.

The unfortunate truth is that some of our neighbors are psychopaths. According to the scientists, sociopaths can be cured, if it’s caught in time, but psychopaths cannot. Psychopaths who are violent challenge our idea that we should only punish people who have moral agency, since they are unable to reform. But some of them have been arrested hundreds of times. They’re incorrigible criminals. What are we supposed to do with them?

Locking them up is not a perfect solution, because the guards and the other prisoners are now exposed to this person. Their lives matter too.