Category Archives: eighteenth century
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
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Confessions
Confessions Last night I was trying to cope with a digestive disaster and wondering what on earth could have caused it, since it didn’t seem to have the usual obvious connection with food. Two explanations presented themselves. First, a possible … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, bigotry, books, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, Idealism-, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, relationships, religion, roles, romantic love, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Abigail L Rosenthal’s Confessions of a Young Philosopher, ancient gnosticism, Australian Materialist, changing paradigms, closing off life's promise, complications of race, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, contending worldviews, disrupting cultural norms, double plotlines, empirical and conceptual plotlines, Eric Voegelin. philosophy of history, escapism, escapism in real history, fashionable attitudes, finding one’s footing, flawless world, gnostic belief systems, gnostic calamities, gnostic cults, gnostic hidden world, gnostic mass movements, Hans Jonas’s The Gnostic Religion, intellectual resources, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, Jews’ precarious position, libertine Gnosticism, life lessons, life paradigm, life problems without remedy, literary talent, living one's promise, man/woman seduction, masculine precincts, personal search for truth, philosophic motivations, philosophy as masculine, portrait of a culture, portrait of one’s era, psycho-somatic illness, quick fixes, Richard Landes’s Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience, search for truth, secret knowledge, self-portrait, situations without exit, St Augustine’s Confessions, the philosophic life, the promise of a life, the truth of one’s time, thought-worlds, utopian political views, when God doesn’t answer, women philosophers, women pioneers, world of ideas, worldviews
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Forgiveness Revisited
Forgiveness Revisited Lately I’ve come to a new attitude toward forgiveness and, for me, it’s a really great change. You might say, it’s a move closer to the Christian view, but that would be misleading. The change was prompted by … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, childhood, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, 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, Idealism-, ideality, identity, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, 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, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Anne Frank, anti-semitism, anti-semitism in denial, cafe conversation, cheap grace, Christian forgiveness, circling evil, civilian Nazi collaborator, civilian Nazi informer, conditions for forgiveness, dangers of forgiveness, defaming others, defeating evil, Dietrich Bonhoffeur, divine power, dream narrative, dream visit, enabling, enabling an aggressor, evil's contagion, forgiveness, forgiving injuries to others, genteel anti-semitism, geography of experience, get out of jail free, hasidic saints, hasidic tradition, insulting Jews, Jesus and forgiveness, Jewish atonement, Jewish identity, Jewish saints, Jewish self-defense, Jews in hiding, letting go, life experience, life wounds, lightening the load, love of God, making amends, Martin Buber, Martin Buber's "Tales of the Hasidim: The Early Masters", moral burdens, moral landscape, moral martial arts, overheard at a cafe, power of forgiveness, rabbinic view of forgiveness, repairing social injury, restaurant scene, self-righteousness, significant dream, social combat, social protocol, soul visitation, spiritual transformation, superficial sophisticates, the art of war, the family of Anne Frank, theological anti-semitism, transforming evil, turning the other cheek, zaddik
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