Category Archives: glitterati
Ave Atque Vale (Hail and Farewell)
The other day I scanned the internet for news of ex-friends who’d stayed significant in my memory. “We quarreled,” as French philosopher Sartre said about one former friend, the philosopher Merleau-Ponty, “a quarrel does not matter. It’s just one more … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, 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, 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
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Tagged academic colleagues, academic dramas of character, academic politics, aristocratic decadence, aristocrats and plebeians, Augustine's boyhood theft, ave atque vale, bad debt, belated farewell, code of conduct, code of honor, concepts of logic, creative logician, decadence, dramas of character, drunk driving, ex-friend, fateful choice, filicide, former friends, French philosophers, friends beyond death, friends beyond the grave, friends’ lives, hail and farewell, honorable losers, labyrinth of man-woman relations, legal redress, loan between friends, logic tutor, love of wisdom, man/woman labyrinth, Merleau-Ponty, moral candor, Moral crisis, moral discernment, moral price of job security, moral price of tenure, moral risk, moral temptation, outward repentance, paying one’s dues, philosopher ex-friend, philosophical colleagues, philosophical conversation, philosophical curiosity, playing with good and evil, politics of experience, pompous philosopher, pompous wordiness, potential dishonesty, prep school and manhood, quarrels of friends, reformed character, reformed church-goer, reformed rake, remembered friends, risking one’s honor, Sartre, selling out, selling your vote, sense of honor, significant friends, symbols and words, toying with wrongdoing, trained emotional suppression, training to suppress feelings, unrepaid loan, upright citizen
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When the Stones Speak
Doran Spielman’s When the Stones Speak: The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David Is the Bible a history book? Did the stories in it (or some of the more literal-sounding ones) really happen? Or are we modern people obliged … Continue reading →
Posted in 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, 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, Renaissance, 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
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Tagged adversaries to biblical archaeology, ancient human DNA, archaeology confirming Bible, atheism and civilization, Babylonians destroy First Temple, battle for the modern mind, Bible and archeology, Bible and existential questions, Bible and modern people, Bible as analogical, Bible as history, Bible as metaphorical, Bible as poetical, Bible as symbolic, Biblical historicity and anti-semitism, Biblical Israelites and DNA, Biblical Israelites and modern Jews, Biblical literalism, Biblical stories as factual, Biblical tales as nonfactual, Davidic monarchy, decline of the West, DNA analysis, First Temple ruins, First Temple stones, First Temple’s destruction 586 BCE, God as real vs metaphoric, God in real history, if it bleeds it leads, Israelite DNA and Jews, Jeremiah thrown in cistern, Jerusalem’s Eastern Gate, Jesus, Jesus and the press, Jesus at the King David hotel, Jesus holds a press conference, Jesus’ hypothetical return, Jesus’ return, Jewish history from ancient to contemporary, King David’s palace, modernity and skepticism, modernity vs Bible’s historicity, ongoing Jewish history, Paleo-Hebrew of Biblical times, postmodern skeptics, Satan holds a press conference, spirituality and history, the city of David, When the Stones Speak by Doron Spielman, Yehuchal and Jeremiah, Yehuchal son of Shelemiah
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The Fork in the Road
* * * A realization visited me the other day. It had to do with lost friendships. I’d always pictured these losses as mere phenomena lying on the surface of life. In the depth, in the end – in the … 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, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, 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
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Tagged A Good Look at Evil by Abigail L Rosenthal, afterlife reunions, believing in oneself, betraying a friend, beyond good and evil, binding commitments, breakup differently explained, broken friendship, café regular, change of heart, changing philosophic commitments, character as destiny, choice with life implications, comfortable in one’s skin, consequential choices, credible defamation, death of friendship, deciphering life events, decisive choice, decoding life events, deep friendship, defamatory gossip, demoralizing the culture, drawing a moral line, erotic exploitation, Europeans and cafés, evil and reality, evil as philosophic concept, female athleticism, fork in the road, friendly opposites, friends and misunderstandings, friendship and trust, friendship destroyed, friendship through differences, friendships’ importance, hip, hipster, irreversible life-choice, journal for self-discovery, life choices, life energy misspent, losing life-force, losing one’s athleticism, loss of grace, lost friendship, lost self-command, lost vitality, lost zest for life, manipulative social relations, misunderstanding between friends, moral categories and reality, Nordic woman, persona as binding the future, philosophers and life strategy, philosophers and personal choice, philosophers and the outdoors, philosophic friendship, philosophy and life wisdom, reality as amoral, reality of evil, Reign of Terror, self-renewal in nature, sexual exploitation, sexual politics, sharing life’s lessons, social enemy, social life in cafés, social manipulation, solitude among café regulars, solitude in nature, superficial friendship, the real and the rational, the real is not the rational, two sides to the story, understanding evil, unshared memories, wearing shorts with authority, women philosophers, writing in cafés, zest for life
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Women Enemies and Women Friends
In Liaisons Dangereuses, the eighteenth-century epistolary novel of cynicism by Choderlos de Laclos, the plot turns around two aristocrats who co-conspire to seduce their unsuspecting victims. Their purpose is not so much to gratify sexual desire as to enjoy the … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, 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, 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, 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, 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, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged 18th-century novel, academic gossip, academic politics, antisocial behavior, at home in the world, attacking a friendship, betraying trust, breaking faith, calumny and collegiality, calumny and lost friends, calumny and mutual trust, carcinogenic stress, Central Park Reservoir, chivalry between women, Choderlos de Laclos, co-conspirators, conspiracy to seduce, conspiring to victimize, culture-wide delusions, cynicism vs innocence, damaging fictions, damaging fictions believed, defamation and social envy, defaming gossip, defaming the innocent, dread medical verdict, effective defamations, epistolary novel, freemasonry of women, friendship betrayed, gallantry between women, gossip and social credit, harmful fictions, homeless in the world, Liaisons Dangereuses, Marquise de Merteuil, medical verdict, moral terror, moral victories, nature mirroring despair, nature reflecting moods, neighbors who are friends, New York neighbors, novel of cynicism, pathetic fallacy, psychogenic illness, psychological warfare, reductionism as cultural norm, reductionism as fashionable, reputation tarnishing, seduction, seduction for power, seductive lies, sisterhood of women, social damage, social danger, social death, social defeats, social envy, social power, social safety, social status, social terrorism, social violence, social war, social wound, surviving social warfare, symbolic murder, test of friendship, Vicomte de Valmont, vulnerability of women, when the bad guys win, woman as skillful enemy, woman colleague, women enemies, women friends, women giving a sense of home, women knowing where to strike, women supporting women, women undermining women, women victims, wounding socially
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The Story
“The crucial thing is the story.” That is what I claim in A Good Look at Evil, my book which holds that the person who would live a good life finds her own story while the evil-doer may be detected … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, 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, 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, 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
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Tagged a shattering secret, Abigail Rosenthal's A Good Look At Evil, above all do no harm, blame as manipulation, Carl Jung, chemistry and healing, danger acknowledged, dementia praecox, despair and guilt, detecting evil, determinism and relativism, discerning evil, disrupted story, distinguishing fact from fantasy, evil doers, evil psychologized away, evil-doers in real life, good life, guilt and projection, hippocratic oath, illness and fashion, inauthenticity, inducing guilt, infanticide, Jung as mental hospital assistant, Jung in Zurich, Jung's autobiography, Jung's Memories Dreams Reflections, life-saving advice, losing true love, marrying the wrong man, meaningful storyline, medical bureaucracy, medical ethics, medical power, medicalizing desire, mental healing, mental illness and conformism, moral blackmail, mothers and depression, Oedipal guilt, outliving despair, philosophical fashions, power misused, preventing suicide, psychological cures, psychology and healing, psychology's banalization, psychology's conventionalism, psychology's denial of significance, psychology's mistreatment of women, psychology's narrow horizons, psychology's reductionism, psychology-based cures, real life confused with fiction, real-life story, relativism and denial, repairing one's story, repairing the psyche, repairing the soul, Schizophrenia, self-sabotage, self-spoiled story, social vulnerability, spoiling one’s story, status and vulnerability, stolen story, story and philosophical fashion, story as defining the problem, suicide and secrets, suicide and therapy, suicide as the wrong solution, telling fact from fiction, the bureaucracy of psychology, the worst harm, thwarting evil, true stories, truth and healing, unchivalrous conduct, victimization, victims of evil, warning victims, wives and depression
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In Quest of Lost Friendship
The other night I had a dream in which I met a woman whom I used to regard as a friend. But she’d become an ex-friend – in the following fashion. An ill-wisher who’d known me from my earliest days … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, appreciation, art of living, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, bigotry, bureaucracy, chivalry, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, 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, institutional power, 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, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, 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, Truth, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic friendships, academic politics, ad hominem attacks, afterlife reunion, afterlife visitation, ambiguity as disguise, believing a damaging lie, broken friendship repaired, candid truthfulness, collegial friends, collegial sense of trust, conversations with a deceased friend, correcting slander, credulous colleagues, credulous family friends, damaging accusations, damaging allegations, damaging gossip, damaging rumors, destroying a reputation, distinctiveness of philosophy, dream reunion, effective defamation, effective slander, evasion of truth, ex-friends, facing the big questions, false accusations, false and damaging accusations, former friends, friends and colleagues, ill-wisher, inauthenticity, intellectual trust, inversions of trust, inversions of truth, legal harm, life pretense vs undisguised afterlife, loss of trust, lost friendship, love of wisdom, meaningful dreams, naïveté as a disguise, narcissism, personal honor, personal honor misrepresented, personality disorders, philosophic friendship, philosophy profaned, politics of experience, pretended ambivalence, pretended appreciation, pretended childishness, pretended confusion, pretended harmlessness, pretended naïveté, pretended non-judgmentalism, professional damage, professional harm, professional patron, professional power, professional protégé, professional protection, protected intellectual space, protecting philosophy, protecting the search for wisdom, Rashomon, repaired friendship, repairing friendship, repentance and forgiveness, restored sincerity, romantic eligibility, search for wisdom, setting the record straight, significant dreams, social demotion, social down-ranking, social terrorism, sowing distrust, spiteful rumors, spoiling friendship, the philosophic life, the philosophic quest, the Rashomon alibi, trust in colleagues, trust in professional life, truth unrecognized, truthfulness vs defamatory lies, trying to undo slander, undermining friendship, undisguised in the afterlife, visitation from the afterlife, wasted words, why philosophy is special, women friends, work friends
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Reincarnation: Anne Frank and Me
Some years back I read a book with the title, And the Wolves Howled: Fragments of Two Lifetimes. The author was Barbro Karlen, a Swedish woman who claims to be the reincarnation of Anne Frank. Anne was the Jewish Dutch … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, 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, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, non-violence, 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
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", Amsterdam, Anne Frank, Anne Frank and Reincarnation, Anne Frank commemoration, Barbro Karlen, Barbro Karlen's objectivity, Cain and Abel, combating anti-semitism, commemorating Anne Frank, confirming incidents of past life, credible calumny, defamations believed, emblematic innocence, evidence for reincarnation, evil rationalized, evil remembered, fading past life memories, famous victims, fratricide, global anti-semitism, hidden diary, hiding from Nazis, Holocaust victim, identifying with wrongdoers, innocence and persecution, insight from the afterlife, Karlen's And the Wolves Howled, machinery of evil, Nazism, oldest hatred, optimism, past life memory, past-life and belief, past-life and personal identity, persecution in work situations, persecution of Jews, pro-Nazi betrayal, pseudo-science, reincarnation, reincarnation and personal identity, reincarnation and probative memory, remembering your death, resistance to evil, seeing extensiveness of anti-semitism, status of Jews, sympathy with bad guys, vastness of anti-semitism
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Death and the Doctors
Readers of this column may recall that I had a near-death experience fairly recently. Not the good kind, where you meet all the dear ones who’ve gone before you up the golden stairway. Rather, the kind where you get to … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, 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, 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, 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, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, 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
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Tagged admitting responsibility, Aristotle on taking responsibility, betrayal of trust, betraying one's calling, betraying one's oath, Cain and Abel, consequential medical mistakes, coordinating instructions between medical institutions, coordinating medical instructions, coordinating medical prescriptions, criminal indifference to patients, culpable carelessness, doctor failure, doctor-caused fatalities, doctor-caused injuries, dodging responsibility, evading responsibility, fatal indifference, go along to get along, healing arts, Hippocratic Oath betrayed, iatrogenic emergency, iatrogenic fatality, iatrogenic near-fatality, in-house politics, institutional politics, involuntary accidents, irresponsible doctors, judging intentions, lawyers representing hospitals, lawyers who represent doctors, malpractice, medical academies, medical accidents, medical fratricide, medical malpractice, medical manslaughter, medical murder, medical politics, my brother's keeper, politics of experience, practiced evasions, professional irresponsibility, profit motive, taking advantage of the vulnerable, taking advantage of weakness, unchivalrous, unromantic, voluntary accidents, was it intentional
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Do Evil People Get Better at Evil If They Reincarnate?
My book, A Good Look at Evil, doesn’t describe the best-known bad actors in human history. The cases I deal with are mostly of near-contemporaries. And, when dictators are discussed, it’s usually through their effects on people who executed their … 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, Biblical God, bigotry, bureaucracy, childhood, 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, 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, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, 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
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Tagged 20th century dictators, 20th-century totalitarians, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", culture unraveled, dictators and public relations, dictators’ lust for power, dictators’ official ideals, dictators’ rationale, dictators’ transpersonal rationales, famous bad actors, Franco’s dictatorship, Franco’s rationales, hidden agendas, Hitler’s dictatorship, ideology and strategy, ideology and the Holocaust, ideology vs strategic effectiveness, manipulation, manipulative control, manipulative dominance, manipulative seduction, Mussolini's pro-Italy propaganda, Mussolini’s dictatorship, Napoleon and French Revolutionary ideals, Napoleon and Roman prototypes, Napoleon at Malmaison, Napoleon’s classicism, Napoleon’s liberté and égalité, Nazi race theory, peace of mind, power as a means, power as the end, power for its own sake, rape, reincarnated villains, tyranny and reincarnation, tyranny misunderstood, tyrant who reincarnates, tyrants’ rationales, tyrants’ unconscious agendas, tyrants’ unconscious motivations, undoing the culture, villains in history
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The Puzzle of Hannah Arendt
The career of Hannah Arendt is surely one of the oddest on record. Doubt has been cast on claims for which she was best known. Yet her posthumous prestige as a political theorist seems largely unaffected by any refutations of … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, 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, 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, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, Nihilism, non-violence, ontology, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's Spoiling One's Story: The Case of Hannah Arendt, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", Arendt and Heidegger, Arendt in social life, Arendt’s coverup, Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt’s excuses for Heidegger, Arendt’s Heidegger at 80, Arendt’s insight in her own case, Arendt’s personal survival smarts, Arendt’s self-concern, denying evil, denying evil as reality, denying guilt, Eichmann as ordinary bureaucrat, Eichmann’s conscience, Eichmann’s lack of regret, evil as banal, evil not banal, excuses for evil, excusing evil, excusing guilt, Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt’s career, Heidegger and Husserl, Heidegger bans Jewish students, Heidegger betrays Husserl, Heidegger's Jewish students, Heidegger’s ingratitude to Husserl, history and reality, history's real stories, in Arendt’s own case evil is not banal, influencing public opinion, intellectual career, intellectual woman, just following orders, misdeeds without regret, moral insight as an aid to survival, moral relativism, moral transgressions, Nazis directing the Holocaust, political theorist, pretending innocence, psychological determinism, public acclaim and posthumous prestige, rewriting history, senior Nazi official, sleeping with the enemy, Stangneth’s Eichmann Before Jerusalem, strategies of the Holocaust, student/teacher affair, survival and moral insight, the excuse of following orders, the real Hannah Arendt
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