Category Archives: International Affairs

Colombia – A Death I Foretold

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Five years ago, when the political restrictions were lifted on Colombia’s terrorist guerilla murderers and kidnappers, I wrote about it, as I am wont to do. I assumed Colombia would fall in a generation. It fell in one election cycle. … Continue reading →

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Hic Sunt Dracones

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

I often entertain conversations with colleagues one or two generations older than I about past adventures. Hitchhiking from Johannesburg to Cairo, bussing through northern Uganda and Southern Sudan and to Juba catching a boat to Khartoum and upward downriver. St. … Continue reading →

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A Parenthesis Utopia

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

One of the difficult lessons I learned from COVID and beyond (because the world won’t be the same, at least not for us) was how futile efforts at utopia are. When COVID hit in February 2020 I was living in … Continue reading →

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Putin’s Master Plan

Posted on April 27, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

“Neo-Eurasianism utilizes the methodology of Vilfredo Pareto’s school, moves within the logic of the rehabilitation of the notion of organic hierarchy, picks up some Nietzschean motives, and develops the doctrine of the ontology of power, or of the Christian Orthodox … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review, International Affairs, philosophy | Tagged | 6 Comments

Levy, Intellectuals and Paris

Posted on April 20, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

This should have been marketed and sold as a booklet. Essay selections rarely work in book form, few writers can pull this off and Bernard Henri Levy is no exception. I would have been disappointed, except Levy began the book … Continue reading →

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To Talk of Many Things… (Vol. #15 – Russian Literature)

Posted on April 16, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

‘I weep for you,’ the Walrus said:I deeply sympathize.’With sobs and tears he sorted outThose of the largest size I read a lot of Russian literature, I have for many years. Writers who care naturally gravitate to Pushkin and Grossman … Continue reading →

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Dueling Nihilisms

Posted on April 6, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Nihilism took center stage in a debate between Aleksandr Dugin and Bernard-Henri Levy. “For me, the embodiment of nihilism today is you (Dugin), and your friends, and the Eurasian current and this morbid atmosphere which fills your books and the … Continue reading →

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What Putin Really Wants

Posted on April 5, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Aleksandr Dugin has been called Putin’s Rasputin. He is a philosopher who cut his teeth in the underground Iuzhinskii Circles in Moscow during the days of the USSR. His ideas were not mainstream Soviet ideas; full of nationalism and metaphysics … Continue reading →

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To Talk of Many Things… (Vol. #14 – Ukraine)

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Some people have asked what my opinions are about Ukraine. Despair, outrage, impotence. Probably the same as you. I was in Kyiv once, though only the airport. I was planning to go back to visit friends, during a summer which … Continue reading →

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War in Europe

Posted on March 20, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Yesterday I watched “Sound of Music” with my little boy. We are going systematically through the classics of American civilization, books and movies and ideas that made us who we are and more importantly keep us who we are. Some … Continue reading →

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