Anti-Climacus

LINK: John Derbyshire laughs it up, in a way:

"So where am I on this "crunchy conservative business? I haven't a clue. See, I may be a naturalized American, but I still have those English genes (or is it memes? — but read on). One of the most English of mental characteristics is a deep resistance to large abstract theories about society and politics — to what the English, in fact, very tellingly refer to as "continental systems."

— Boswell: So, Sir, you laugh at schemes of political improvement?

— Johnson: Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.

In its most extreme form, this native hostility to abstract system-building extends to all kinds of thinking, philosophical and religious, as well as political.

— I looked up the passage in Russell's book [Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, by Bertrand Russell]. If the antithesis to a 'some' statement is always an 'all' statement, then... [There follow 100 or so words attempting to grapple with one of Russell's logical arguments.] ...But I can never follow that kind of thing. It is the sort of thing that makes me feel that philosophy should be forbidden by law.
— George Orwell, letter to Richard Rees, 3/3/1949

— One angry lady demanded to know my definitions of "God" and "religion." (I don't have definitions. I'm an Anglican, for crying out loud.)
— John Derbyshire, "August Diary," NRO 8/30/2002."