Hello, and Welcome.

Let me begin with a clarification. I have never met or had any contact with Jonathan D. Jaynes, and this blog has nothing to do with him, nor the website he maintained (maintains?) at http://www.superfluousman.com/. At least as of today (19th May 2008), however, I cheerfully recommend it to anyone who enjoys the sort of photography that causes you to stop and think for a moment.

This blog is created as a forum for my own personal comments and reactions to whatever happens to rouse my interest at a given point in time. Normally that will focus on the worlds of religion, history, politics, current events, sports, entertainment, and so on. I don't really think of this as a diary, but I suppose in some ways it may well be. Obviously it is not the sort of project that will attract the attention of more than a handful of onlookers. And while I don't necessarily intend to say things that I would not to say directly to my friends and loved ones, I would, to be blunt, like to preserve that option. So for now I choose to leave my name and most other identifying-facts unsaid.

Just to give some idea of my perspective, I will say that I am a happily married husband, born and raised and living in the American South. Each of my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were all born and raised there, too. These facts are the sort that I dwell on from time to time. I am sure that as things go along, it will be possible for an extremely dedicated reader to eventually draw a more detailed portrait. And if that ever happens, it's fine by me.

The concept of "A Superfluous Man" was first coined in Russian literature of the 19th Century. In 1943, the American author and critic Albert Jay Nock borrowed the idea for the title of his memoirs. And in 1977, the historian Robert Morse Crunden (1940-1999) brought out an anthology of work by Nock and like-minded fellows, titled The Superfluous Men: Conservative Critics of American Culture, 1900-1945. Originally published by the University of Texas (where Crunden taught for over 30 years), the book was reissued by ISI Books of Wilmington, Delaware, almost immediately after Crunden's death. I am greatly pleased to have a copy of the ISI edition in my personal library, and urge anyone who might come across it to spend a few minutes between its covers. On the inner-dustjacket is the following quote (by Crunden, about Nock):

Nock made the essential point: ransack the past for your values, establish a coherent worldview, depend neither on society nor on government so far as circumstances permit, keep your tastes simple and inexpensive, and do what you have to do to remain true to yourself.

He borrowed from ancient Greece, Thomas Jefferson, Matthew Arnold, and especially from Rabelais, but not from banks. He voted for Marcus Aurelius and Charles Dickens, but not for Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I rather like that.

Now as the Rossington-Collins Band once warned, Don't Misunderstand Me. This blog is not a shrine to the brilliance of Albert Jay Nock. In fact, there is much about AJN's writings that are far from brilliant, or at least far from what I aspire to. But the basic gist of my outlook on the world is there. Again, quoting Crunden's description of Nock's outlook:

Politics involves the lowest kind of person and brings out the worst qualities of everyone associated with it, yet such is the democratic cant of the day that Americans overlook all the evidence and regard its legal and social consequences with respect and even awe. The state monopolizes crime and enables individuals to commit acts as public officials that they would be ashamed to do as private citizens. Politics originated in conquest and confiscation and persists in order that one class of people can exploit the others.

Quite so.

There is much more to say, and I hope that I will have the time to say it. I believe in God and believe that one day each of us will be called before God to give account of our actions in this life. The Apostles' Creed summarizes my religious views about succinctly as possible. Religion is an important topic to me, and the whole "Spiritual but not Religious" ethos of our time makes me ill. Our America is truly a modern-day Laodicea, fattened in affluence, lukewarm in spirit. This is a subject that I hope to return to in this blog, and it is one that understandably causes me to think about the future with skepticism, if not outright dread.

But I do not want to leave on such a sour-note, so I will close with a more reassuring concept about the future, one that I believe--as deeply and unshakably as I believe anything at all -- will come to pass some day:

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

Amen.