Author Archives: Abigail
I Stopped Trying to Get Above It
Reading Jeff Kripal’s Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom brought the topic of mysticism to the front of my mind. At earlier junctures of my life journey, mysticism had clearly been a concern. It seemed to offer a way out … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, 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, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Uncategorized, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Advaita Vedanta, beautiful guru, beyond good and evil, Blaise Pascal, cancer and life experience, cults and corruption, dangers of a spiritual quest, dilemmas and double binds, Eastern mystics, eros and merging with God, eros and mysticism, escapism, Evelyn Underhill, Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism, experiential impasses, finding one’s life path, getting above it, guru who falls, gurus and exploitation, historians of mysticism, impasses, insoluble experience and cancer, knowing how to think, knowing what to do, knowing what to say, Kripal’s Roads of Excess Palaces of Wisdom, life in history, life journey, life on the timeline, life’s impasses and cancer, merging with the Divine, mind control and brainwashing, mystical journeys, mystical merging, mysticism and authenticity, mysticism and autonomy, mysticism and celibacy, mysticism and conformism, mysticism and human goals, mysticism and seduction, mysticism and sex, mysticism and the erotic, mysticism as academic topic, mysticism as escapism, mysticism studies, mystics in Asia, mystics in Christianity, Pascal as mystic, Realized Master, spiritual exploration and brainwashing, spiritual exploration and mind control, spiritual quest, spiritual quest and risk, theism and pantheism, transcendence, transcendence as escapism, woman guru
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Naked Apes?
Lately I happen to have been reading two books on what Darwin – and his intellectual descendants (like Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene or Jane Goodall, In the Shadow of Man) – got wrong! The two books are philosopher … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, 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, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged abortion public opposition private need, abstract ideals vs lived views, ape reproductive strategies, apes and pair bonding, apes and parenting, Applied Ethics, Atheism, authenticity and sociobiology, Bible as history book, competition and courtship, Creationism, culture and theories, Darwin’s allies, Darwinian courtship, David Hume, David Stove’s Darwinian Fairy Tales, Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape, DMA, erotic life and reductionism, etiquette for courtship, female guilt, female pliancy, groupthink, healthy relationships, herd mentality, Homo sapiens and monogamy, human brains and monkey brains, human evolution, human mating strategies, human psychology, idealism and cynicism, idealism vs real life, Jane Goodall’s In the Shadow of Man, jealousy in human beings, Jonathan Leaf’s The Primate Myth, lived philosophy, male guilt, MRI, Oedipus complex, pair bonding and human evolution, philosophical reductionism, possessiveness in human beings, power politics, prehistoric monogamy, primitivism and social style, profaning the sacred, Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, sex differences, simian reproductive strategies, social influence of theories, social result of wrong theories, sociobiology and bigotry, sociobiology and civilization, sociobiology and gender roles, sociobiology and human courtship, sociobiology and man/woman relations, sociobiology and misanthropy, sociobiology and misogyny, sociobiology and seduction, sociobiology and sincerity, sociobiology’s social influence, survival of the fittest, theology vs real life, theories and human reality, Thomas Malthus, toughness in women, unhealthy relationships, virginity and courtship, war of the sexes, who gets abortions, young men and chivalry
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What Kind of a Man?
I grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side (in the days before that got to be a swank neighborhood) and, aside from Mr. Z (our superintendent who turned out to be a Nazi spy), nobody – rich or poor or … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, 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, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged abnormal motives, anti-semitism as a syndrome, attacking the vulnerable, blaming the Jews, Catherine Chalier, chivalrous men, Christianity re human relations, conference on Levinas, conspiracy theorist, covert social insult, duties of a guest, eliding Levinas’ Jewish influence, Emmanuel Levinas, eros of life, evil unambiguous, French philosopher, handling social insult, Hannah Arendt and Eichmann, Hannah Arendt and Holocaust victims, Hitler unpopular in New York, Holocaust and philosophy, Holocaust survivor, honoring a guest, Jewish approach to human relations, Jewish identity, Levinas and assassination threats, Levinas and Jewish thought, Levinas and the human face, Levinas re the human face, Levinas’ disciple, living out one’s story, Manhattan's Upper East Side, manhood and courtesy to women, manliness and unmanliness, misremembering history, misremembering Hitler, moral clarity, moral clarity in World War II, moral clarity vs moral ambiguity, Nazi spy in Manhattan, nonresistance to evil, normality of friendship, Peterhouse in Cambridge U, pseudo questions, psychology of anti-semitism, resistance to evil, respecting the human face, reversing good and evil, secular human relations, self-realization, simplicity of evil, social reality, social reality before anti-semitism, socially problematic to be Jewish, Spoiling One’s Story: The Case of Hannah Arendt in Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, Sydney University’s Dept of Traditional and Modern Philosophy, the human norm, World War 2’s domestic front, World War II
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Peterhouse Meets Abbie
Peterhouse was founded in 1284 which makes it the oldest of the colleges in Cambridge University. A “college” provides a residence for students going for degrees at various levels and also for Fellows and other instructors who will be available … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, 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, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged academic dinner, academic politics, academic publications, Anti-Semitism at Cambridge University, Anti-Semitism at Peterhouse, anti-semitism in academe, Australian politics, Australian research affiliate, Australian Universities, bad manners, baiting a guest, christians and jews, colleges in Cambridge U, collegial friends, comparing husbands, countering an insult vs making a scene, culture of rudeness, defending honor, defending one’s honor, dinner for visiting philosopher, erotic failure, guest from Peterhouse, handling a social insult, handling social aggression, hidden prejudices, higher ed in England, honoring a guest, husband as protector, Jews handling Anti-Semitic insults, maintaining courtesy and countering insult, medieval Anti-Semitism revived, personal honor and honor of one’s people, Peterhouse, philosophical friends, philosophy in Australia, philosophy research affiliate, private prejudices, protecting a vulnerable wife, protocol of social life, responding to a rude guest, signals of safety, social boundaries vs personal protection, social decorum vs protecting one’s wife, social disadvantage, social protocol, social protocol and handling an insult, social protocol and personal insult, social protocol vs social insult, spousal failure as protector, spouse as ally, supportive husband, Sydney U’s Dept of Traditional and Modern Philos, symbolic life and death struggle, table talk, the honor of Jews, unhidden prejudices, unsupportive husband, unsupportive partner, visiting philosopher, women handling insults, women handling male insults
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