Category Archives: femininity
Beyond ‘Beyond Good and Evil’
Recently, I finished reading a novel, The Far Pavilions, by M.M. Kaye, set in 19th century India. Its hero is a young British officer with a dual identity. He’s been raised as an Indian child after his English parents died … 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, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, 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, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mortality vs immortality, 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, 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, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged 19th century India, a denatured life, a life denatured, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", absolutism vs. relativism, adaptive skills, authenticity and immorality, authenticity and liberation, authenticity and modernity, authenticity and postmodernism, awareness of evil, British officer in India, Brooklyn College Philosophy Department, career troubles, children of mixed acculturation, curing evil, double identities, evil and denial, evil and excuses, evil and personal responsibility, evil and self-promotion, evil as cure for failure, exorcism vs voluntary wickedness, exorcist vs voluntary evil, expectations of others, exposing a villain, exposing wickedness, finding one’s path in life, freedom from moral constraints, Friedrich Nietzsche, giving evil free rein, guilt and innocence, heroes and villains, hopeless condemnations, irrelevant moralizing, judgment re good and evil, judgment vs. judgmentalism, literary evil vs real evil, losers and winners, losing grip on one’s story, losing one's way in life, malevolence in a student, manipulative moralizing, moral absolutism and moral relativism, moral accuracy, moral condemnation and bullying, moral condemnation and childhood, moral decision, moral judgment, moral judgment and hypocrisy, neutrality about evil, Nietzsche and authenticity, Nietzsche and Freud, Nietzsche and social constraints, Nietzsche Freud and Heidegger, Nietzsche in adolescence, Nietzsche philosophizing beyond good and evil, Nietzsche philosophizing outside moral constraints, Nietzsche playing with evil, Nietzsche's adolescence, Nietzsche’s dark theology, Nietzsche’s intellectual influence, ordinary failure, ordinary success, philosophy in higher ed, philosophy majors, physical vs psychological threat, pulling moral rank, rationalizing wickedness, real evil, reversing moral categories, romantic troubles, social know-how, social skills and flexibility, succeeding at evil, Sue Prideaux's I Am Dynamite! A Life of Nietzsche, the choice of evil, The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye, the way of evil, unfair accusations, you don’t win every round
|
1 Comment
The Decline and Fall of Sex
Still concerned as I am to discern the ways and means by which the trained philosophers among us have been thinking about sex, I’m going to dig deeper. From the collection, The Philosophy of Sex, I’m picking out the essay … 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, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, 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, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mortality vs immortality, 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, 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, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged Alan Goldman, Alan Goldman’s Plain Sex, Aristotle’s four causes, artificial sexual ethics, Bidimensional Dispositionalism, competition between sexual orientations, counter-erotic social patterns, defining sexual orientation, difficulty of defining sexual orientation, efficient cause of sex, Elizabeth Brake on polyamory, Elizabeth Brake’s Is ‘Loving More’ Better? The Values of Polyamory, embarrassment about sex, final cause of sex, formal cause of sex, love and adolescent confusion, love and damaging jealousies, love and disastrous marriages, love and monogamy, love and women’s liberation, material cause of sex, meaningless sex, novel sexual combinations, philosophers on sex, pleasure as a side effect, pleasure not an exclusive motive, polyamorous requirements, polyamory, privileging heterosexuality, protection for queer orientations, psychological influence of contraception, pulling moral rank between types of desire, reducing heterosexual privilege, Robin Dembroff’s What Is Sexual Orientation?, sex abstracted from consequences, sex affecting a relationship, sex and frustrated people, sex and heartbroken people, sex and losers, sex and professional advancement, sex and selling the Brooklyn Bridge, sex and social advancement, sex and utopian programs, sex and winners, sex as a weapon, sex for its own sake, sex for pleasure, sex for satisfying desire, sex making a difference, sex making no difference, sex without cultural assumptions, sex without cultural layers, sex without external goals, sex without love, sex without purpose, sex without reproductive purpose, sex-change surgery, sex-change surgery and consequences, sex-change surgery and scientific basis, sex-change surgery and tragedy, sexual choice as changeable, sexual competition, sexual taboos, sleeping your way to the top, slippery slope fallacy, taking sex out of context, the double standard, the eros of society, The Philosophy of Sex 2023, thinking about sex, transforming society re gender-nonconforming identity, transforming society re sexual norms, transforming society re transgender protection, transgender persons in women’s bathrooms, transgender persons in women’s locker rooms, transgender persons in women’s prisons, virtues needed for polyamory, women’s sports and transgender players
|
2 Comments
Getting Sex All Wrong
There are some who believe that “You are what you eat.” Differing from those people, I believe that “You are what you think.” And about The Big Subject, what philosophers think and write about sex can trickle down 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 Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, 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, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mortality vs immortality, 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, 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, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged abortions and risk, academic philosophers on sex, Aristotle on treating people appropriately, Benatar’s Two Views of Sexual Ethics: Promiscuity Pedophilia and Rape, biological meaning of sex, casual sex, casual sex as including sexual deviance, Christina’s Are We Having Sex or What?, commodification of intimacy, commodification of sex, conceptual questions re sex, consent as distinct from desire, counting coups in sex experience, defining what counts as sex, desire and sex, disillusioned women, eligible partners, eligible sex partners, evolution and contraception, evolution and homosexuality, evolution and human flourishing, evolution and in vitro fertilization, evolution and masturbation, evolution and nothing-but-ism, evolution and reductionism, fear of pregnancy, going along to get along, Greta Christina, intimacy and relationships, Kant vs Aristotle on moral questions, love and sex, love and the essence of sex, manipulative sadness, marriage and the role of great sex, marriage as exclusive and committal, marriage as life-long commitment, Micah Newman’s A Realist Sexual Ethics, misleading scene-setter for studying sex, opinions no woman would hold, oversimplifying evolution, parenting and marriage, philosophers influence the culture, philosophers influence the zeitgeist, philosophical defense of monogamy, pleasure vs the purpose of sex, promiscuity, promiscuity and addiction, promiscuity and regrets, rape, rationales re sex, religious defense of monogamy, reproduction as sex’s defining essence, reproduction as the purpose of sex, scene-setting for philosophic discussion of sex, scoring in sex, seductive sadness, sex and disease, sex and evolution, sex and getting real, sex and how to live, sex and its rationales, sex and love, sex and philosophers, sex and physical risks, sex and psychological wounds, sex and real life, sex and reputation, sex and social standing, sex and why we live, sex as a conceptual question, sex as expressive of loving attachment, sex as significant, sex changing a relationship, sex requiring consent, sexual body count, sexual disillusionment, sexual encounter defined, sexual permissiveness, sexual reckoning, significant sex vs casual sex, social mores as protective, social mores as protective of women, suspending disbelief, suspending judgment in philosophic discussion, suspending judgment in philosophizing re sex, suspending moral judgment in philosophizing, suspending moral judgment in philosophizing re sex, The Big Subject, The Philosophy of Sex 2023, the sexual revolution, traditional view of the role of sex, treating women as a means, Was it sex or not?, What counts as having sex?, What makes an essay philosophical?, When is an essay on sex philosophical?, women and getting threatened, women as means to biological end, women being disgusted, women being offended, women being scorned, women’s erotic vulnerability, women’s vulnerability, You are what you eat, you are what you think
|
1 Comment
Getting Philosophical about Sex
Philosophers debate many things, but do they talk about what makes the world go round? As it happens, a number of philosophical colleagues have been contributing to The Philosophy of Sex (Rowman & Littlefield 2023, eds. Raja Halwani, Jacob … 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, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, 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, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mortality vs immortality, 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, 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, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged agender identity, asymmetry as romantic or exploitative, asymmetry of man/woman intimacy, attaining erotic success, avant garde philosophy, avant garde style, being who you are, biologic facts vs social facts, broadcasting a private encounter, competetive scoring for men re sex, defending women in law, desire at the deep level, desirers mirroring each other, don’t ask don’t tell, eros and atheism, eros and delusive expectations, eros and ideality, eros in Plato’s Phaedrus, exploiting female vulnerability, female vulnerability, feminist in-group taxonomy, gaining one’s life by losing it, Gender Categories by Katharine Jenkins, gender oppression, genderqueer identity, in-group taxonomy, inhabiting one’s identity, interpreting one’s identity, intimacy and disrespect, kiss and tell stories, kissing and telling, love’s aim not appetitive, love’s aim not satisfying an appetite, love’s aim ontological, men’s identity, multiple social identities, Nagel explaining the sexual norm, Nagel on reciprocal attraction, nonreciprocal sexual act, normality in sex, offering sex for moral reasons, ordinary atheism, oversimplifying romance, philosophers debating, philosophic recollection insulting to men, philosophic recollection insulting to women, philosophical colleagues, philosophizing about sex, power imbalances, private experience as life capital, propositioning a man, propositioning a stranger, propositioning a woman, resistance to gender oppression, romance as real-life drama, Sartre on sex as frustration, Sartre’s man is a useless passion, sex as conquest, sex as sacred, sex felt as a duty, sex not a commodity, sex not merely a pleasure, sex vs gender, sex without self-interest, sexual encounter recollected, sexual experience more consequential for women, sexual scoring not a victory for women, sexual supererogation, Soble’s Sexual Gifts and Sexual Duties, supererogatory sex, The Philosophy of Sex 2023, the power of no, the sexual norm, Thomas Nagel’s Sexual Perversion, uncomfortable campus encounter, uncomfortable sexual recollection, ungallant recollections, unresolved man/woman recollection, unresolved romance, unresolved sexual recollection, women and power imbalances, women and social comportment, women’s identity
|
1 Comment
The Dance of Desire
“Are you still looking for Mister Right?” Lorraine – a well-regarded feminist as well as a stalwart friend – once put that question to me. It was some years ago that this conversation took place. I … 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, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, 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, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mortality vs immortality, 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, 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, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged a girl’s girl, abusing a patient's trust, asymmetry between the sexes, bodice buster novels, bodice ripper novels, Catharine MacKinnon’s Feminism Unmodified, Catharine MacKinnon’s statistics, cheating husband, combining career motherhood and marriage, dance of desire, deus ex machina, equality in academe, Famous feminists, feminism and contraception, feminist book on contraceptives, feminist book on the pill, feminist friend, finding Mister Right, Freud and women, happily ever after, happy ending, heroes’ gallantry to women, husbands resenting wife's success, looking for Mr. Right, male gallantry, male heroism, male/female equality between academic colleagues, man/woman equality and inequality in Genesis, masculine nobility, men taking out on women their loss of standing, Mr. Right, overstepping professional bounds, physical asymmetry of the sexes and social consequences, political vs personal liberation, prefeminist advice program, prefeminist friendship, prefeminist TV personality, private hopes of public feminists, private lives of public feminists, professional success vs personal success, psychiatric malpractice, psychiatrist husband, real life not the movies, Ring of Gyges syndrome, Romantic Love, romantic love as a miracle, romantic love as miraculous, seduction as pretended therapy, succeeding as a woman, successful wife and mother, the feminine vocation, the stories of women, therapist seducing a patient, unliberated feminist, what do women want?, wife who has it all, women and big city encounters, women and cynicism, women and harassment, women and sexual assault, women and unwelcome looks, women and unwelcome remarks, women befriending women, women catering to masculine ascendancy, women in novels, women never harassed, women protecting male ego, women protecting male self-respect, women supporting women, women who give up hope, women’s desires thwarted, women’s hopes disappointed, women’s life stories, women’s unspoken hopes, worst husband, you can’t fight every fight
|
2 Comments
Death Frames the Story
In Death is But a Dream, the report of research by Christopher Kerr that I wrote about last week, the author’s interviews with the dying tell of reunions between the dying and those they cared about who had predeceased … 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, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, 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, 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, mortality vs immortality, 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, 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, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged afterlife and judgment, afterlife and truthfulness, credibility of the dying in law, cultural implications of personal survival, cultural implications of surviving death, cynicism vs realistic idealism, cynicism vs self-empowerment, death and medieval jurisprudence, death and modernity, death and postmodern assumptions, death and standard medical view, death as the end, Death is But a Dream by Christopher Kerr, death not the end, death of a father, deathbed experiences, deathbed reunions, deathbed visions deemed hallucinations, deathbed visions medically viewed, deathbed witnesses, dying and romance, dying and true love, dying brings out the true self, dying brings out the truth, dying foregrounds character, evidences of survival, fantasies vs realistic hopes, feelings of the dying, implications of immortality, introducing one’s love to departed parents, introducing wife to deceased mother, last kiss, last words of the dying, legal credibility of the dying, life is not meaningless, lives as nonfiction stories, love does not die, lovers separated by death, meaninglessness no longer in style, research into death and dying, reunions of the dying and the dead, romance doesn’t die, surviving death and living meaningfully, surviving death is culturally respectable, the dying and divine judgment, the dying have nothing to lose, the dying presumed not to lie, true love and dying, Visions Trips and Crowded Rooms by David Kessler, witnesses to deathbed experience
|
2 Comments
We Don’t Die When We Die
It’s not over. One thing is certain. When we talk, when we act, when we commit ourselves to any project – big or small – when we retire for the night or rise for the day: sooner or later our … 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, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, 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, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mortality vs immortality, 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, 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, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged afterlife unknowns, Atheism, Caitlin Gibson’s The Washington Post article on deathbed visions, Christopher Kerr’s Death is But a Dream, credible deathbed experiences, cultural assumptions, cultural changes if death is not the end, cultural implications of surviving death, cultural worldview, Darwinian implications, death and taxes, death unpredictable, deathbed experiences, deathbed mending of misused life, deathbed moral repair, deathbed reunions with cherished places, deathbed reunions with departed friends, deathbed reunions with friends killed in battle, dying different for each person, end of story, end of the line, End-of-Life, exiting present time-and-space conditions, facing the past, fashionable nihilism, fashionable reductionism, fixing the past, hallucinations vs deathbed experiences, human mortality, intelligent survivors, interviewing the terminally ill, interviews of the dying, it ain’t over until it’s over, life concerns the living, manner of death unforeseeable, modern assumptions, modern emotional style, modern moral parameters, modern nihilism, modernity’s repressed nihilism, mortality not the end, oversimplifying human complexities, Philosophical Materialism, reductionism, refusing reductionism, repairing the past, research into dying, surviving death, surviving death and making life count, surviving death and reconceiving power, surviving death and revising the narrative, surviving death and social implications, surviving death vs nihilism, surviving death vs the absurd, the dead still concerned, the dead supposedly unconcerned, the great unknown, the nothing-but fallacy, where personal control stops
|
1 Comment
Dreams about Real Life
The night before we left for California, I had what may be the strangest dream I ever dreamed: I was in a passenger plane – flying who knows where – until the airplane was split in two by a lightning … 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, 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, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, 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, 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, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged age of reason, anti-semitism as anti-colonialism, anti-semitism in the Age of Enlightenment, anti-semitism in the Romantic period, anti-semitism inventing deicide, anti-semitism reflecting the Zeitgeist, anti-semitism the same through outward changes, anti-semitism through history, cast thyself down, decoding dreams, don’t test God, dream figure representing anti-semitism, dreams, dreams decoded by experts, dreams self-decoded, dreams that fulfill diagnostic expectations, Freudian dreams, Freudian psychoanalysis, Freudians and New York fashions, God and air travel, God not liking ugly, God’s anger at anti-semitism, gospel hymn I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, history of anti-semitism, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, interpreting one’s own dreams, Jesus declines to test God, Jew-hatred unchanged in a changing world, Jewish assimilation and the Holocaust, Jungian dreams, lightning and God’s anger, lightning as heaven-shattering, lightning splitting the sky, meaningful dreams, newest form of oldest hatred, oldest hatred, plane crash, post-Darwinian anti-semitism, precognitive dreams, rabbinic Judaism denies concept of collective guilt, rabbinic Judaism denies concept of hereditary guilt, reproaching Holocaust victims, reproaching Israelis as colonialists, reproaching Jews in their ancient home as colonialists, sibling rivalry as theology, Temptation of Jesus, testing God’s believed favoritism, the chosen people, the Chosen People and perennial resentment, turnover-gendered person, undiscovered island, veridical dreams
|
1 Comment
Grief, Martha Nussbaum, and Me
Abbie is away this week getting treatments in California. This column was originally posted on February 13, 2024, and continues to be timely. Recently, I’ve been reading a highly-regarded woman philosopher whose name is Martha C. Nussbaum. MCN is, along … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, 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, self-deception, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, 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, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged a mother's death, afterlife reunions, ancient philosophers, being born is hard, classicist, death as not the end, death as the end, deathbed farewell, demands interrupting grief, dream announcing a death, dream visit, dream visit from loved one, dreams with conflicting interpretations, dying as difficult, dying is hard, emotional realities, emotions as informative, emotions as instructive, Epicureans, fear of abandonment, filial piety, getting born as difficult, grief and being orphaned, grief and picking up the pieces, grief as abandonment, grief as anger, grieving a parent, honoring one's mother, hospice staff, intellectual pioneer, interpreting dreams, losing one's mother, love for one's mother, Marth Nussbaum's Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, Martha Nussbaum, missing the deathbed, mother/daughter relation, mourning and guilt, mourning and self-reproach, mourning one's mother, orphan syndrome, out of body experiences, paranormal vision, philosophy as therapy, precognitive dream visit, self-reproach, status of mothers, Stoics, the chores of mourning, the work of mourning, unreasonable anger, waiting for the afterlife, where I am death is not, woman academic, woman philosopher
|
Leave a comment
A Liberated Woman
Abbie’s talk at Stony Brook. Homer’s World The first time I came out in public as a feminist, I was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The State University of New York at Stony Brook. For some reason, I had … 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, 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, 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, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
|
Tagged "Feminism Without Contradictions", a book loses magnetism, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Feminism Without Contradictions" in The Monist, academic feminist, Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, becoming a free woman, biblical Israel, Biblical Israel and Homer’s world, Biblical Israel missing from map of ancient world, breaking taboos, breaking the ice, clothes as a statement, directive to throw a book out, Divine command to discard a book, Divine directive, dodging a divine command, dress for success, dress to impress, feminism in academe, feminism in philosophical journal, feminist, feminist stage performance, Fulbright in Paris, Fulbright scholars, Fulbright women, Greta Thunberg in book about ancient world, Homer and Isaiah contemporaries, Homer's Iliad, Homer's Odyssey, liberated woman, magnetism of a book, maps of Homer’s world, new book on Homer’s women, obeying a divine command, Odysseus comes home, Penelope and Odysseus, Penelope in The Odyssey, Penelope’s shrewdness in the Odyssey, Penelope’s strategy with the suitors, performing on stage, philosophy at Stony Brook, second wave feminism, self-liberation, sensing God’s presence, Simone de Beauvoir, songs for the feminist movement, Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, woman philosophy professor, women and dressing to impress, women in Homer, women's liberation, women’s liberation from false authority, women’s liberation from false narratives
|
2 Comments
