Category Archives: American politics
Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions: Preface, Part 2
Today, Dr. Jerry L. Martin and Dr. Abigail L. Rosenthal (author of Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column) carry forward last week’s discussion of Confessions of a Young Philosopher. Let’s see how their discussion continues. *** Jerry: Having said that true love … Continue reading
Posted in action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, 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, scientism, secular, 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, Truth, twentieth century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", 1940s America, Abigail L. Rosenthal, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", American home front, American Jewish experience, anti-Semitism in the U.S., Authenticity, childhood in wartime, childhood memories of war, consequences of war, critical thinking, cultural critique, cynicism, espionage in America, Ethics, existential courage, existentialism, experience vs innocence, family history, fighting complacency, fighting tyranny, Fulbright scholars, generational trauma, generational wisdom, genocide prevention, German-American Bund, growing up during war, growing up with history, heroic mothers, historical consciousness, historical impact, historical memory, history and personal identity, history of fascism in America, Holocaust, Holocaust remembrance, Holocaust survivors, human nature, human resilience, idealism, impact of small actions, impact of war on children, individual agency, individual courage in war, individual vs society, intellectual life, intelligence and espionage, Jerry L. Martin, Jewish history, Jewish identity, Jewish resilience, lessons from history, lessons from the past, lessons from World War II, modern philosophy, moral philosophy, moral responsibility, moral seriousness, naivety vs realism, Nazi sympathizers in the U.S., Nazi threat in America, New York City, overcoming disillusionment, Paris, personal history, personal transformation, philosophical reflection, philosophy, philosophy of history, philosophy of love, protecting democracy, public intellectuals, pursuit of truth, Raphael Lemkin, refugee aid, remembering history, resilience of the human spirit, resistance to evil, Romanticism, second-generation Holocaust awareness, significance of choices, skepticism, skepticism vs hope, social commentary, survival and memory, the role of memory, the role of memory in history, true love, U-boats near New York, unsung heroes, war and innocence, war and morality, war and philosophy, war’s impact on childhood, wartime ethics, wartime New York, wartime refugees, wisdom, wisdom through adversity, witnessing history, World War II, Yorkville, Yorkville in wartime
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Feminism with Something to Hide
When I was a girl, nobody thought women weren’t liberated. Heck, we had the vote. We could get as educated as we wanted to be. We could get hired for jobs formerly reserved for men. Of course, we had to … 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 15 minutes of fame, Abigail L. Rosenthal’s Confessions of a Young Philosopher, academic feminism, American courtship patterns, American Fulbrights in Paris, birth of the unconscious, Confessions of a Young Philosopher by Abigail L. Rosenthal, dystopia, European feminine know-how, European vs American courtship, European women, extravagant courtship, fallacies of argument, fame, fame and feminism, fashionably Oppressed, fashions in oppression, Feminism, feminism and dialectic, Feminism and Freudian theory, feminism as performance, feminism past and present, feminist power, fictional self-disclosure, forgiving one’s self, formation of the “I”, formation of the unconscious, Fulbright Fellows, Fulbright Fellows in Paris, girdles nylons and virginity, infantile trauma, influential intellectuals, intellectual power, intellectuals and culture, Judith Butler and Hegel, Judith Butler’s feminism, Judith Butler’s Giving an Account of Oneself, Judith Butler’s primal scene, life before feminism, older and wiser, personal relations and risk, philosophical dialogue, pre-feminist marriage deadline, pre-feminist women, pseudo-arguments, self and social conditions, self mistrust, self repair, self-formation, sense of self, social conditions and self-formation, social conditions and self-knowledge, social status of truth, telling one’s story, telling one’s truth, the American script for women, truth about oneself, unfashionable oppression, women’s experience, women’s liberation, women’s reality vs ideology, women’s wisdom
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Anti-Semitism and the Zeitgeist
At the time I came to young womanhood, Jews of my generation believed we were way past the dark days of danger. Only refugees from recent tyrannies spoke of anti-semitism as a force that could show up “even here.” Well … 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, 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, 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, repairing the culture, 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, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Adam in Judaism and Christianity, Ambrose, Ambrose and supersessionism, anti-semitism and prejudice, anti-semitism as incurable, anti-semitism defined, anti-semtism and the chosen people, Augustine, Augustine and supersessionism, becoming anti-semitic, Biblical covenant, Bildungsroman, Cain and Abel, Cain's mistake, choosing the Jews, chosenness of the Jews, Christian anti-semitism, Christian thought leaders, coming of age novel, Copernicus Kepler and Galileo, covenant of Abraham, covenant of Israel, crucifixion and redemption, curing anti-semitism, difference between Judaism and Christianity, Enlightenment vs the Jews, erotic competition, ever recurring nature of anti-semitism, exorcism of anti-semites, God as an actor in time, God of history, God of history vs God of nature, God of history vs God of supernature, God's pilot project, Goebbels and his Jewish love, Heidegger and Hannah Arendt, Heidegger’s nazism, human interaction with God, Jesus and Adam's sin, Jewish view of redemption, Jewish vs Christian theology, Jews as the anti-zeitgeist, Judaism and life in real-time, Judaism and preserving memory, Judaism and temporal life, Judaism and the human condition, Judaism as historical religion, Martin Heidegger, Modernity, nazis and Darwin, nazis and racial theory, Newton and the Age of Reason, obsessions about Jews, Old Testament vs Hebrew Bible, original sin, Paul and Original Sin, Paul and the crucifixion, perenniality of anti-semitism, persecuting Jews, political correctness and anti-semitism, political correctness and Israel, recovering anti-semites, religious competition, Romanticism, Romanticism and finding one's roots, Romanticism and rootless cosmopolitans, Romanticism and the Jews, sibling rivalry and anti-semitism, sin in Judaism and Christianity, supersessionism, the Age of Reason, the chosen people, the church and the Jews, the Hebrew Bible, the Holocaust, the Holocaust and nazi rationales, The Trinity, theological defamation, unhealthy relationships, young womanhood, Zeitgeist, Zeitgeist vs the Jews
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Beautiful Souls and Life on the Ground
We are back in Bucks County and home from a conference in San Diego where we each presented our just-published books. The title of mine, as was noted last week, is Confessions of a Young Philosopher and it’s a life … 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, eighteenth century, 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 "beautiful souls", "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", 1800 years of persecution, 1948 UN vote for partition, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", acknowledging Jewish presence, American Academy of Religion, antisemitism’s shape-changing, antizionism and antisemitism, audience of theologians, author presentations, beautiful souls and the IDF, Bildungsroman, book panel, charter of Hamas, Christianity without its history, Christianity’s supersessionist claims, coming out of the closet, competitive victimhood, concentration camp survivor, conceptual and physical erasure, conceptual and physical erasure of Jews, conceptual erasure of Judaism, confession as a spiritual genre, Descartes’ mask, earthbound, existential erasure of Jewish presence, Gaza's 300 miles of tunnels, Gazans elect Hamas, Goethe, Goethe as novelist poet playwright and natural philosopher, Hamas photographs Oct 7, Hamas promises more Oct 7, Hamas stores arms under civilian sites, Hamas' call for genocide, IDF's efforts to reduce civilian casualties, Israel's War of Independence, Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, Israel's defensible boundaries, Jesus said "Salvation is of the Jews", Jewish history, Jewish history and the Holocaust, Jewish survival, Jews and history, Judaism as foundational Western religion, just-published books, life on the ground, living out one's beliefs, living your philosophic view, masked philosophers, noticing Jewish absence, Oct 7 2023, persons and ultimate reality, physical erasure of Jews, repairing past wrongs, repeating history by ignoring history, search for meaning, self-disclosure, Socratic life strategy, Sorrows of Young Werther, supersessionism, telling a true story, the human situation, the illusion of transcendence, theologians, theological conference, theology and history, theology with a clean slate, Theology Without Walls, too pure for this world, transcending established religions, transcending without first repairing, victimhood as status
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Confessions of a Young Philosopher: A Special Feature
With these words, Pulitzer-nominated author Abigail L. Rosenthal sets the tone for Confessions of a Young Philosopher, her groundbreaking memoir. Blending philosophical reflection, and a deeply personal narrative with illustrations by Caroline Church, Confessions is an intimate exploration of a … 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, books, 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, 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, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, 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 Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher"
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Anti-Semites I Have Known
Actually, I haven’t known that many. I’m talking about people who directed offensive remarks at me personally, related to my being Jewish, with intent to hurt. (As to the current variety, who sport masks, they came on scene after I’d … 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, 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, 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 "God" and projection, aggression and social expectations, anti-Semites, anti-Semitic, Are you Jewish?, Catherine Chalier, Catholic priest, chivalric love, chivalry and human interaction, chivalry of human relations, Christian Jewish competition, Christian Supersessionism, clergy with doubts, conversation with friends, counter-erotic insults, covert insults, cultural competition, cultural erasure, Dante’s Divine Comedy, dinner with friends, dishonest ending, disrespecting chivalry, Emmanuel Levinas, ending a friendship, erotic erasure, erotic erasure of Jewish women, erotic erasure of Jews, erotic erasure of women, evading Jewish philosophy, ex-friends, feminism and social insults, French-Jewish philosopher, friendship and trust, from agnosticism to faith, handling a social conflict, hatred stopping dialogue, hopeless hatred, insulting the human face, Israel controversies, Israel-baiting, Jehudah and Benjamin, Jewish academics, Jewish sense of human reality, Jewish sense of reality, Jews and Jehudim, Judaism denied, Judaism erased, Levinas and the face, Levinas and the Jewish face, Levinas conference, Levinas Conference at Chicago, Levinas without his Judaism, loaded questions, loaded situation, men of the cloth, mistakenly trusted friend, murky evasions, non-Jewish conference on Levinas, offensive remarks, personalizing anti-Israel views, politics of religion, pretended piety, pretext for a quarrel, priesthood, priestly vocation, religious doubts, religious experience, religious rivalry, Russian Orthodox priest, sibling rivalry, sidestepping Jewish thought, social anti-semitism, social dilemma, social insults, social norms, social quarrel, social victimization, students with masks, ten lost tribes, the Jewish-Christian theological alternatives, triangular conflict entrapment, trusting the clergy, twelve tribes of Israel, victim's professional dilemma, victim's social dilemma, what friends expect, witness at wedding, woman in a quarrel between men
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Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions: Preface, Part 3
Today Dr. Jerry L. Martin and Dr. Abigail L. Rosenthal (author of Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column) carry forward last week’s discussion of her new book, Confessions of a Young Philosopher. Let’s see how their discussion continues. *** *** Jerry: You just believed in … Continue reading →