The Philosophical Optimist

              Philosophy—let’s admit it, folks—has a bit of a bad reputation today.   But why?   What is philosophy, really, besides thinking rigorously and clearly?   And perhaps some people hate thinking rigorously, as some people hate thinking altogether; but clear thinking—no one can argue with that, now can they?   In reality, it is not philosophy that people tend to hate, but bad philosophy, of which we have an unfortunate abundance.   When it is good, philosophy can be as cleansing as a strong, stiff breeze blowing through a dusty old attic on a spring day.   It can make our thinking clearer, even about things where we never had any idea that we were thinking unclearly in the first place.             For example, consider the question: what is “worth”?   How do you get it?   Who doesn’t have it?   And who decides who d...

             A grammarian’s work is never done—nor a logician’s; and when one is a writing teacher, one of necessity plays both roles.   Sloppy writing is often but the outward sign of an inward illogic, and as all fans of the planet Vulcan know, a common foe of logic is strong emotion.   Hence it logically follows that it is precisely when people write about the things that matter the most to them that they are most likely to fall into the various logical traps we term fallacies.   When this happens it is the task of calmer, more logical minds to step in and restore order where passion—quite understandable passion, perhaps—has disordered things.             What topic could stir passions more thoroughly than the old contrast, so often flaring up into conflict, between the men who are, in a sense, the first two superheroes: Superman (1938) and Batman (1939)...

  [Note: I started this essay last year, shortly after the movie Brightburn came out on DVD.   However, the movie so inflamed my opposition that I found it impossible to complete this review at the time without being un-Christianly cruel.   Now, after several months, I have been able to finish a more moderate and appropriate version of this essay.]                 The 2019 film Brightburn is, quite simply, the worst movie I have ever seen, and the world needs to know.   Now, when I say this, I do not mean that it is a product of poor craftsmanship; I mean that this film is—not to put too fine a point on it—morally evil.   It is the sort of work that shows just how far our civilization (Western, Anglophonic, American, what-have-you) has fallen.             The list of possible accusations against this film is long, but first, a brief summa...