Monthly Archives: September 2018

Are People Really Good at Heart?

Posted on September 25, 2018 by Abigail

Are People Really Good at Heart? “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” These words — set down as a belief, not a question — are among the last lines in the diary … Continue reading →

Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Childhood, Chivalry, Christianity, Cities, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Films, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, Jews, Journalism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Martyrdom, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, non-violence, Ontology, Oppression, pacifism, Past and Future, Peace, Poetry, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, Romanticism, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, social construction, Social Conventions, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, terrorism, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged acts of kindness, American idealists, being set up, believing illusions, believing the best, Bergen Belsen, betrayal to the Nazis, Black American Exiles, concentration camp, death in the desert, defenselessness, Egyptian authorities, enabling, enabling evildoers, Fulbright scholars, gestures of kindness, good-heartedness, hiding from the Nazis, Holocaust victims, human goodness, human kindness, human nature, idealistic values, Isis attack, John Armstrong, kindness as natural, Kindness Tour, kindness tourists, Lauren Geoghegan and Jay Austin, life lessons, lowering defenses, misguided trust, mistakes of kindness, mitzvot, mortal miscalculations, naivete, non-violence, Parisian expatriate, reforming evildoers, repairing the world, Richard Wright, safeguarding good people, satyagraha, saving good people, The Diary of Anne Frank, the goodness of others, The Shoah, thirst and exposure, tragedy, trusting people, Tweety bird | 6 Comments

Beatrice in Modern Gear

Posted on September 18, 2018 by Abigail

Beatrice in Modern Gear “Thou “who, to bring my soul to Paradise, Didst leave the imprint of thy steps in hell …” So wrote Dante of Beatrice at the end of his Divine Comedy. “The eternal feminine leads us above.” … Continue reading →

Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, Chivalry, Christianity, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Courage, Courtship, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, Medieval, memory, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, Mysticism, Ontology, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Poetry, Political, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Renaissance, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, Romanticism, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, Sexuality, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 14th century, ancient v modern, Aristotelian worldview, Aristotle, bad faith, Beatrice, breakfast with philosophers, chivalry, contemporary novel, courtly love, Dante’s Divine Comedy, deathbed communication, deathbed vision, delusional attachments, delusive ideals, disenchantment, disillusionment, enabling, feminist worldview, Goethe's Faust, good advice, idealization of woman, inauthenticity, Inner world vs external world, intelligible world, Kipling’s Kim, love’s power, mechanistic view of nature, medieval poet, medieval politics, mind/body problem, modern physics, modern psychology, Modernity, noble ideals, outdated chivalry, primary v secondary qualities, purposive worldview, randomness in physics, sacrificial love, Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, Sartre’s cafe scene, saving one’s beloved, saving souls, scientific outlook, self-sacrifice, subjective v objective, teleology, the eternal feminine, the feminine ideal, therapeutic outlook, universal genius, your place or mine | Leave a comment

Delusions of Intellection

Posted on September 11, 2018 by Abigail

Delusions of Intellection “People live and die by ideas!” “You are what you think – much more than what you eat!” With encouraging words like these, I would try to persuade students in an intro course to see the study … Continue reading →

Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Hegel, hegemony, Heroes, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, Jews, Journalism, Law, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Messianic Age, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, nineteenth-century, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, Political, Political Movements, politics, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reductionism, relationships, Renaissance, Roles, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, terrorism, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Albanian student, Alexander Bloom’s Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World, American assimilation, Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, Arabian student, bad ideas, bad karma, Brooklyn College of CUNY, careerism, children of immigrants, class inequality, class war, communism, cultural assimilation, delusions, delusive thoughts, dialecticians, division of labor, educated delusions, fall of Soviet Union, first generation Americans, flawed ideas, Great Soviet Experiment, hope of the future, immigrants, Indian student, intellection, intellectual delusions, intellectual diversity, intellectuals, Jewish intellectuals, Jewish quotas, Karl Marx, Karl Marx’s The German Ideology, left wing writers, Marxism, Moscow demonstration, multiculturalism, New Masses magazine, opportunism, parental dreams, Partisan Review, peer approval, philosophy, philosophy professor, philosophy students, pied piper, risk of belief, Russian student, self-deception, Somalian student, specialization, teaching philosophy, Texan student, the 1930’s, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes Terror Repression, the Great Depression, the Other, The Soviet Union, thought world | Leave a comment

Private Matters

Posted on September 4, 2018 by Abigail

Private Matters The man I love has gone through harrowing surgery this week. It was not one of the operations currently at the frontier of the surgical arts. Once, it was. Now it’s about at the middle. Surgeons do it … Continue reading →

Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, Institutional Power, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Martyrdom, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, novels, Ontology, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Poetry, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, Romanticism, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, Sexuality, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 'till death do us part, academe, acceptance, action fields, aloneness, beshert, broken history, bypass surgery, cutting-edge surgery, difficult recoveries, facing the abyss, falling in love, falsified life, friendship, Heart surgery, human entanglements, husband and wife, institutional supports, life renewal, life system, limit situations, living artificially, living naturally, long term storage, Manhattan parks and museums, marriage for modern women, marriage vows, meaningful work, mind/body relations, moral accounting, moral record, moral support, New York City life, ordeal, philosophic commitment, philosophical articles, philosophy professor, professor/student interaction, recovery process, relativism, search for truth, short term storage, single life, solitude., state-of-the-art medical care, survivor’s predicament, taking risks, the city one loves, the old neighborhood, true love, truthfulness, untangling life knots, Upper East Side, women’s identity | 3 Comments

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Monthly Archives: September 2018

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