Category Archives: American politics
Femininity – A Social Construct?
A professor in one of my graduate departments of philosophy warned me that, if I wanted “to become a philosopher, [I’d] have to destroy [my] femininity!” On the other hand, Simone de Beauvoir opened her path-breaking, paradigm-shaking book, The … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, 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, erotic life, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, 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, 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, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged college towns, convent life as a woman's solution, de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, destroying femininity, femininity and cultural paradigms, femininity and culture, femininity as innate, femininity as social construct, femininity at risk, feminism and cultural paradigms, feminism and culture, inconveniences of womanhood, intellectual fashions, male professors, male/female differences, men and women as different, moral fashions, motherhood and women's ambitions, philosophy and femininity, safety and women undergraduates, sex differences natural or conventional, Simone de Beauvoir, situation of women, social construct, unisex-beings-with-inconveniences, what do women know?, what do women want?, what my grandmother knew, what my mother knew, what women know, whistleblower, woman in a male profession, womanly authority, womanly realism, women erasing themselves, women who take the veil, women's wisdom as cross-cultural
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As Philosophy Goes …
I hold the view, borrowed from G. W. F. Hegel, the nineteenth-century’s primo philosopher of history, that philosophy plays an oversized role in shaping human events. So do earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, global warming periods, plagues and nasty fights over water … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, 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, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, repairing the culture, roles, romance, 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, terrorism, 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
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Tagged academic martyrdom, academic power struggles, American Philosophical Association, Ann Gary, APA’s Proceedings and Addresses, are people like machines, brainwashing, can machines replace people, can you live inside your philosophy, Catholic convert, cognitive psychology, communicating across difference, competition between underdogs, David Chalmers, Eleonore Stump, Epistemology, facial recognition, fallacy of scattershot condemnation, fashionable ideas, feminist philosophy, feminist quarrels, forced confessions, groupthink, Hegel, human knowledge vs AI, human suffering, human thinking and AI, Hypatia, idealized knowledge, Incommensurable Otherness, intellectual autobiography, Jennifer Nagel, John Dewey Lectures, Jonathan Schaffer, learning models, logical positivists, Mariana Ortega, mechanist materialism as worldview, medieval logic, metaphysics, mind/body problem, moral one-upmanship, opposition to women in philosophy, people compared to machines, philosophical account of ultimacy, philosophical fashions, philosophical friendship, philosophizing about human suffering, philosophy and nonquantifiable experience, philosophy and the future, philosophy and worldviews, philosophy as a profession, philosophy as a truth-seeking discipline, philosophy as cultural influence, philosophy as life-shaping, philosophy lectures, philosophy of history, philosophy transcends the tyranny of fashion, philosophy's political influence, physicalism, physicalism and reductionism, physicalist worldview, Plato's view of knowledge, prediction errors, primary and secondary qualities, primary qualities, pulling moral rank, Reign of Terror, right opinion vs knowledge in Plato, Saint Augustine, Salem witch trials, sexism, the politics of philosophy, theory of everything, thinking machines, Thomas Aquinas, true knowledge vs opinion, Vienna Circle, wisdom as true knowledge, wisdom knowledge vs everyday knowledge, women in philosophy
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Elegy for Ed Erwin
I hadn’t heard from Ed since right after his unexpected surgery. He’d sent me a technicolor headshot showing how he looked when post-operative. Pretty banged up. I didn’t realize that it would be his wordless explanation for ending further communication … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, 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, institutional power, 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, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, political, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, repairing the culture, roles, romance, 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, terrorism, 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
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Tagged "Feminism Without Contradictions", academic freedom, academic honesty, academic intrigue, academic lawsuit, academic lecture in a mini-dress, academic minefield, academic power games, academics in psychoanalysis, beginnings of feminism, blacklisted in academe, cancel culture, Colin McGinn, collegial appreciation, collegial friendship, collegial relations, denunciations in academe, dialogues and dialectic, Ed Erwin, elegy, empiricism, evidence for Freudian claims, experimental relationship, feminist debut, guilty until proven innocent, honest criticism, hopeless around women, Memorial Minutes, men and women in academe, moral beauty, novelistic, Oleanna by David Mamet, performing academic feminism, personal vs. professional, philosophy as love of wisdom, philosophy at Stony Brook, picture louder than words, Platonic dialogues, post-operative reaction, power struggle, Proceedings and Addresses of the APA, professional assassination, professor-student relationship, psychoanalysis vs. other treatments, psychological liberation scheme, quitting your therapist, Reign of Terror, respect for one's teacher, reverence for one's philosophic teacher, sex harassment charges, singing feminist, Socrates the model, songs for women's liberation, State University of New York at Stony Brook, tactful truthfulness, the compliment of honesty, The Monist, therapist's bad arguments, thesis advisor and advisee, truth and tact, unfounded accusation, uptight Englishman, what you see is what you get, Why Women's Liberation?
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The Old Year Resolved
Since I had the afternoon free, I thought it would be interesting to reread my journal entries from 12/30/22 to the present evening. How had the past year gone for me personally? Actually, I’d expected to find chasms that had … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, 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, 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, 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, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, repairing the culture, 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, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged 19th century Romanticism, 4000 year old conflict, a balanced life, Abraham's blessing, anti-semitism in America, anti-semitism's global reappearance, anxiety and reality, artists who stay normal, avant-garde artists, Biblical combats for the legacy, Biblical fights over the inheritance, challenges of life, cherem in the Hebrew Bible, competing cultural values, competing for the Biblical blessing, conforming nonconformists, culture and holy writ, Davidic genealogy, diary record, empathy at a distance, evil's reach, extraordinary opinions expressed as ordinary, fashionable radicals, finding one's purpose in life, German Romanticism, German Romantics, going along to get along, Hamas and moral contagion, happiness, Hegel, hysteria mistaken for talent, indulging youthful rebellion, Isaac's descendents, Ishmael and Abraham, Ishmael and Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac, Ishmael Isaac and the blessing, Islam's conflict with Jews, Islam's conflict with Judaism, Islamic triumphalism, Jonah and the Ninevites, joyful serenity, limits of cherem in Biblical Israel, living and dying by ideas, multiculturalism in Biblical Israel, New Year resolution, October 7, opposing evil, opposing middle-class morality, past life motivating current life, past life vision, Paul Gauguin, people are what they believe, people live and die for their Absolute, personal equilibrium, personal growth, personal journal, personal memories, personal story, Peter Paul Rubens, revoked ban on the Amalekites, Sarah and Hagar, self-maintenance, shocks of life, slaying dragons, storm and stress, Sturm und Drang, suicidal nonconformity, talent and hysterics, talent doesn't need abnormality, the Book of Ruth, the oldest hatred, the personal becomes geo-political, the Quran and Jews, the Quran on Jews at end of history, unconventional opinions expressed as if normal, unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict, year-end retrospective
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Our Broken Stories
It’s Christmas Eve, which prompts a medley of reflections. On the one hand, for Christians it’s the night when the child is born who will redeem the world from sin. For Jews on the other hand, Nittel Nacht was the … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, 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, 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, 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, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "God and the Care for One's Story", antidotes to despair, battles unperceived, birth of redeemer, broken civilizational stories, broken cultural stories, broken heart, broken personal stories, Cain and Abel vs Joseph and his brothers, Christian-Jewish divide in personal experience, Christian-Jewish split in the psyche, Christmas Eve, Christmas for Jews, Christmas for Jews and Christians, Christmas reflections, despair and antidotes, father’s preferential love, God and the Care for One's Story, happy endings in ragged real-life, having a care for your story, heart break, hillbilly gospel, history’s problematic, I am your brother Joseph, Israelites in Egypt, Jesus and extra-historical rescue, Jesus and original sin, Jesus and the vertical dimension, Jesus as co-religionist, Jesus beyond doctrine, Jesus beyond religion, Jesus in country gospel, Jesus without anti-semitism, Jesus without doctrine, Jewish stories on the horizontal timeline, Jewish-Christian reconciliation, Joseph and his brothers, Joseph and Pharaoh’s dreams, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, Joseph in Egypt, Joseph interpreting dreams, Joseph meeting his brothers, Joseph testing his brothers, Joseph's coat of many colors, life as a war zone, mark of Cain, mental health crisis, Nittel Nacht, parental favoritism, Pharaoh’s precognitive dreams, preferential love, Rabbinic advice to stay home on Christmas Eve, real-life happy endings, reconciliations can’t erase the past, Red Foley’s I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, repairing broken stories, repressed guilt, return of anti-Jewish fratricide, return of the repressed, sibling murder, sibling rivalry, sibling rivalry in the Bible, sibling rivalry in the Book of Genesis, solving history’s problematic, the battlefield of life, the Christian story, the favorite wife, the Jewish story, the Joseph story, the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, the relationship between the Christian and Jewish stories, Torah Study, vertically oriented Christian stories, violence against Jews on Christmas Eve, winning the name Israel
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Has the Whole World Been Blessed?
Let’s start where the story starts. Abram is living in Ur of the Chaldees when, without explanation or preamble, God – the God of history – says to him, get up, get out of there and go where I send … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, 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, 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, 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, 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, repairing the culture, roles, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, 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
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Tagged 135 CE Jewish defeat, Abraham and Ur, Abraham's call, Abraham’s blessing as a thought experiment, American Jews on campus, anti-Western triumphalism, atheism and Abrahamic religions, “unreal city in the future”, Bar Kokhba revolt, Christian exclusivism, Christian Supersessionism, contemporary questions re the promise to Abraham, cultural self-refusal, ecumenical spirit, enlightenment and religion, fashionable Anti-Zionism, Genesis 12, God as a player in history, great nation promise to Abraham, history and God’s promise, history and God’s promise to Abraham, Holocaust and Christian supersessionism, inter-religious tolerance, Israel at the front lines, Israel's right to exist, Israel’s self-affirmation, Judaism and interreligious dialogue, Judaism as the elephant in the room, killing my brother for an unreal city, lech lecha, meaning of history, meaning of the blessing of Abraham, Oct 7 and blaming the victim, Oct 7 as defining moment, philosophy of history, promise to Abraham, promise to Abraham and Christians, providence and history, questions raised by the promise to Abraham, religious dialogue and the nones, religious inclusivism, saving modern civilization, significance of the blessing of Abraham, story beginnings, the God of history, war for Jewish independence, Western civilization’s justification for being, Western civilization’s reason for being, Western civilization’s self-doubt, whole world blessed promise to Abraham, world-wide religious discussions
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Where’d My World Go?
The world in which I came of age, learned to be a young woman, and entered my chosen academic field of philosophy, did not include provisions for people who hated Jews and wanted them dead. Hitler lost the War – … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, 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, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, repairing the culture, roles, romantic love, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, sex appeal, sexuality, 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
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, academic bureaucracy, academic freedom, academic limits on free speech, academic norms, academic philosophy, Analytic philosophy, anti-semitism and contemporary culture, becoming a philosopher, chivalry and anti-semitism, choosing a career, civilization and self-defense, civilization’s self-rejection, coming of age, Continental philosophy, crisis points in history, cultural wholeness, Daniel Dennett’s I’ve Been Thinking, dialectic and history, entering academia, evil as objective reality, evil intruding in ordinary lives, FDR saves capitalism, free speech and anti-semitism, free speech and insults, free speech and threats, free speech for me but not for thee, freedom of speech in the academy, gratitude for Jews, Harvard philosophers and anti-semitism, Hegel, Hilary Putnam, Jewish refugees, Jews in academic life, learning womanhood, Merleau-Ponty, modernity and alienation, Mother as unsung hero, Mother captures Nazi spy ring, not looking for trouble, oldest hatred, philosophers open to refutation, philosophers who can fix your flat tire, philosophers you can trust, philosophy and real life situations, publish or perish, quarrel between the analysts and the continentals, quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, reductionism and philosophy, self-hatred projected on the Jews, seventeenth-century, status of Jews, the War against the Jews, unsung hero, woman in academic philosophy, women’s stories
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I Dreamed I Saw Hitler Last Night
Make no mistake, in my whole life Hitler has never appeared in any dream or daydream of mine. I don’t think about Hitler. He’s not in the iconography of my consciousness. This was also the first time I’d seen him … 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, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, 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, 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, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic conference, academic discourse, academic discourse and shunning, academic discourse and unspoken taboos, academic lecture, academic lecture Q and A, academic ostracism, ancient Christianity, ancient Judaism, ancient theological quarrels, archaic thought layers, beyond feminism, body language of discourse, buried thought layers, conversion and rabbinic Judaism, coping strategy, dialectic and self-defense, dialogue and avoidance, disarming body language, early Christian saints, Early Christianity, feminine invisibility, feminism and social intelligence, first-century Judaism, following the argument, handling a situation, healthy discussion, historical imagination, instructive dreams, Jerusalem's Western Wall and the speaking stones, Jews and early Jesus movement, Jews and the afterlife, Jews during the time of Jesus, Judaism conspicuously unmentioned, Judaism misrepresented, looking for an opening, men and women vs feminist abstractions, mutual forgiveness, non-threatening body language, not rising to the bait, political dream, politics of religion, pre-feminist interactions, real-life advice for women, real-life lessons, Saint Ambrose, Saint Ambrose and Jews, Saint Augustine, Saint Augustine and Jews, side-stepping ideological posturing, significant dream, situation handled, situation to be handled, situational choreography, social death, social erasure, social intelligence, Socratic dialectic and the academy, Socratic dialectic and women, staying in the game, the choreography of social power, the dance of professional relations, the dance of social relations, the Righteous Gentiles, theological omissions, theology conference, theology lecture and questions, truth-seeking in the academy, unhelpful ideology, Western religion’s Jewish foundation, World War II newsreels
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The Color of the Sky
We were in California this past week where from time to time Jerry and I go for neuropathy treatments for me that actually help. Since October 7, the color of the sky has changed for me, so I was glad … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, 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, 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, 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, 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, sex appeal, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged angel of retribution, anti-semitism, art of dying, atonement in Judaism, authenticity and inauthenticity, bragging SS men, breaking the human bond, chaos and creation, Christian forgiveness vs Jewish forgiveness, clean conscience, concentration camp memoir, contrite SS man, cost to the victim, death bed confession, death bed remorse, death camp experience, demagogues, evil and moral intelligibility, failure of human solidarity, finding one’s path, finding one’s vocation, German Romanticism, group identity vs individual responsibility, groupthink, guilt or innocence, human reality made symbolic, identifying one’s calling, irreparable harm, justice and mercy, law of moral experience, lessons from harmful deeds, mercy vs justice, mob psychology, moral accountability, moral candor, moral precariousness, mother-son relation, not asking for it, Nuremberg Tribunal, October 7 2023, one-pointed, persons treated as symbols, pseudoscience, Reincarnation and moral repair, Reincarnation and repentance, repairing human harm, repairing the human bond, repentance and forgiveness, restoring intelligibility out of chaos, retribution, seductive demagogues, shielding one’s self from suffering, Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, single-minded soul, smug obliviousness, SS man’s regrets, SS Veterans, suffering and moral intelligibility, suffering caused by evil, suffering unacknowledged, sympathy refused, the Divine Presence, the good death, the human community, the impact of cruelty, the problem of evil, the Shekinah, the voice of history, the voice of one’s time, theology and moral accountability, treating Jews as symbolic, unforgivable crimes, unremorseful SS men, victimizing normal people, voice of a generation, war crimes, Why does God permit suffering?, Wiesenthal and the dying SS man, Wiesenthal as Nazi hunter, Wiesenthal treated as representative
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The Absolute is Up for Grabs
Recent changes in what was formerly considered socially okay may be seen in two incidents I couldn’t sidestep. A long-time woman friend figures in the first incident. We’ve been in each other’s lives since the time in Paris when we … 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, books, bureaucracy, childhood, 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, 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, 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, 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, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged agenda driven misunderstanding, ancient religious underlayers, anti-Judaism as a culture import, Asian vs Western religious mindsets, Christian myths about Jews, collective guilt, competition for the covenant, competitive theologies, covenant and who God loves best, culturally embedded distortions, David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, diplomacy in friendship, discerning right from wrong, discerning the moral principle, Doctrine of Deicide, extra-historical spirituality, false naivete, faux pas, flipping moral status, friendship at risk, good guys and bad guys, goodwill confronting malice, historical religions, imperiled friendship, innocence and guilt in history, inverting moral relations, Israel’s right of self-defense, Israel’s right to exist, Jewish timeline, killing Socrates, malice in social settings, moral discernment, Oct 7 and ex-friends, Oct 7 and friendship, pulling moral rank, pulling rank on Jews, pulling theological rank on Jews, religious acculturation, rhetorical questions as insults, Secular Left’s ex-Christians, social insult, social life as war, social navigation, socially acceptable, St. Ambrose and Jewish legal rights, St. Ambrose and the burned synagogue, St. Augustine and Jewish legal rights, status rivalry, the burden of Jewish history, theological rank and social rank, theological social climbing, theology and modern Israel, unconscious cultural baggage, unholy theological doctrines, victimhood competition, victims and victimizers, victims falsely accused, victims treated as victimizers, what is absolute for a culture, woman friend, youthful friendships
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