Category Archives: Absolute Freedom and Terror
Friends in the Teeth of History
Some of my best friends are Christians. That sounds like my riff on the anti-semite – who delicately sets aside an exception or two – to counter-balance his sweeping detestation of Jews in any larger numbers. No – unlike the … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, 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, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, 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, 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, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, 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, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "The future is the past entered through another door", adversos Judaeos, American in a European bathhouse, anti-Judaism in patristic writtings, anti-Judaism isn't that old, anti-Judaism on the timeline, anti-semite's Jewish friends, beauty of Israeli girls, beauty of women, beginnings of Homo sapiens, best friends, body language of equality, body language of oppression, body language of self-confidence, changes in how Jews are viewed, changes in relations between the sexes, children of Holocaust survivors, chosen people's feminine beauty, Christian character development and friendship, Christian formative years, Christian friends, Christian high culture's anti-Judaism, Christian saints and anti-Judaism, Christian upbringing, church doctrine, church dogma, conversation between friends, cost to Jews of Enlightenment emancipation, cure for anti-semitism, curing history, curing religious history, faculty union, generational change in cultural patterns, getting it right this time, global anti-feminism, healing Christian-Jewish history, Hegel's Absolute, internalizing oppression, Jewish emancipation in Europe, Jewish identity, Jewish rights in history, Jews and Christians, Jews and the European Enlightenment, liberation of women, loss of childhood, loss of one's world, loss of parents, male dominance in Homo sapiens, mending the past, nakedness without complexes, Nazi abrogation of Jewish rights, nostalgia for childhood, nostalgia for parental home, patristic anti-Judaism, patristic reworking of Jewish scripture, persecution of Jewish students, philosopher in a youth hostel, philosopher's eye view of women, philosophy and Brooklyn College, Professional Staff Congress of CUNY, PSC and anti-semitism, religious politics, reversibility of time, Rosemary Ruether's Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism, self confidence of Jewish students, self-approval of the persecuted, sudden changes in cultural patterns, theological rational for anti-Jewish policies, theological seminaries, theology and culture, trust and conversation, Turkish baths in Jerusalem, unfettered conversation, unrestricted conversation, William Johnson Cory's Heraclitus, women's equality, worldwide anti-feminism
Leave a comment
The Owl of Minerva Takes Flight
“The owl of Minerva takes flight only at dusk.” So wrote G. W. F. Hegel, the nineteenth century’s major philosopher of history. By that he meant that any given phase of history can be understood only in retrospect – after … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, 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, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged ancient skepticism, anthropic principle, Antony Flew’s There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, brainwashing, cancel culture and desire, cancel culture and social power, chance and life’s origin, coerced confessions, culture and the absolute, culture and ultimate truth, Darwin and chance, Darwinian evolution, decoding present history, desire and erotic skepticism, erotic manipulation, foreseeing the future, Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama and liberal democracy, G.W.F. Hegel, George Orwell's 1984, guilt and social power, Hegel and history, historical eros, ideology and tyranny, intelligibility of history, laws of probability and evolution, liberal democratic values, Mind Control, Modernity, my story and humanity’s story, natural purposes, ostracism and social power, owl of Minerva, personal story and world history, philosophy and teleology, postmodern skepticism, postmodernism and denial, psychoanalysis, purposiveness in nature, reading the Zeitgeist, Robert Jay Lifton's Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China, skepticism, skepticism and biological nature, skepticism in history, Sy Garte’s The Works of His Hands: A Scientist’s Journey from Atheism to Faith, teleology, the big picture, the bird’s eye view of history, The Owl of Minerva and history, theology and teleology, Ukraine and Western nations, Ukraine as a test of values, understanding the present, world history and liberal democracy
Leave a comment
Theological Rivalry
The other day, Jerry said to me over brunch, “Why don’t Jews move to claim Jesus as their own?” I thought about that a minute, then answered, “The evangelicals are the most significant American voting bloc that still supports Israel. … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, 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, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, romantic love, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged ancient Jewish miracle workers, anti Judaism and the erotic factor, anti-Judaism and Christianity, archaeology and Roman Judea, archeology and ancient synagogues, archeology and Jesus, Bible movies, Christ of faith, Christian Jewish friendship, Christian missionaries in the ancient world, crucifixion expiating Original Sin, David Flusser’s Jesus, early Christians, evangelicals and Israel, fate of Judas, God incarnate, historical Jesus, Israeli and Christian scholarship, Israelis and Israelites, Jesus and contemporary followers, Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries, Jesus and loving your enemies, Jesus and miracles, Jesus movement in classical times, Jesus the Israelite, Jesus the miracle worker, Jews and Jesus, Jews and loving your enemies, Jews outside Judea, Judaisim in Roman occupied Judea, Judaism and miracles, Judaism and Paul, Luke’s Gospel, mind power, miracle workers as God’s intimates, miracles and laws of nature, miracles and physicalism, non Jewish friends of God, original sin, Paula Fredriksen’s When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation, Pauline doctrines, politics of persecution, Pontius Pilate, Rabbi Irving Greenberg and Jesus, religious competition, Resurrection of Jesus, righteous Gentiles, Roman occupied Judea, Sadducean doctrines, Sadducees, synagogues in the Roman Empire, The Passion of Christ, theological rivalry, theology of contempt
1 Comment