Category Archives: medieval
Jesus
I never tried to arrive at settled convictions about Jesus of Nazareth. Being Jewish, I saw no need to do that, except for holding a few broad-stroke opinions about certain views associated with Christianity. For example, take the belief that … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, 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 "woman" not a social construct, 2000 year theology of contempt, Abel’s sacrifice accepted, anti-Jewish redactor of Matthew 27:25, anti-Jewish redactors of New Testament, anti-semitism and culture’s Ultimate, anti-semitism as cultural fashion, anti-semitism post October 7, asymmetrical erotic relations, asymmetrical personal relations, Cain and Abel, Cain’s sacrifice not accepted, campus anti-semitism, Chrisitian theology of contempt, christian doctrines, Christian self assessment as loving, Christian theology, Christian-Jewish friendships, crucifixion and Original Sin, cultural health, cultural pathology, culture and it’s Absolute, culture’s sense of meaning of life, culture’s Ultimate, Eden expulsion as analysis of human condition, fraternal rivalry, fratricide, Hegel’s cultural diagnostic, Hegelian questions, hillbilly gospel, historical Jesus, history and moral responsibility, interfaith discussions, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Jew, Jesus vs Chrisitian anti-semitism, Jewish doctrines, Jewish view of good and evil, Jewish view of the Fall, Jewish view of the Garden of Eden, Jewish view of the Tree of Knowledge, Jewish views of Jesus, Jewish views of Original Sin, Jewish/Christian competition, let sleeping dogs lie, longest hatred, mindless groupthink, mission of Jesus, moral responsibility in Genesis, New Testament redactors, New Testament scholarship, nonsectarian surface and religious depth, October 7, original sin, Original Sin not a Jewish doctrine, Paul and Original Sin, Pauline claims and Judaism, phenomenon of anti-semitism, politics of early Christianity, politics of religion, Pontius Pilate, recent New Testament scholarship, religious depths of nonsectarian opinion, sacred and profane in culture, sources of recent anti-semitism, the Garden of Eden and the human condition, the human condition in Biblical stories, the record of Christianity and Judaism, theological disputes, theology of anti-semitism, two sons of Adam and Eve, understanding a culture through its view of the Absolute, What is sacred in a culture?, what Jesus believed, William Nicholls’ Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate
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The Stroke of Lightning
One time I asked the Swiss-French philosopher Jeanne Hersch what she thought the French model for romantic love was. Her response was instant: C’est Tristan. That twelfth-century tale, which exists in many versions, goes like this: Tristan, a Cornish knight, … 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, 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, 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, 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, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, public facade, public intellectual, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic attitudes, blinded by love, bracketing personal involvement, bracketing the natural attitude, cynicism as pretense, dance of the lovers, Dante Alighieri, Dante and Beatrice, Dante's romantic love, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Edmund Husserl, encoded Gnostic stories, explaining away romance, falling in love, falling in love unawares, feminism as anti-romantic, fitting romantic love into categories, French choreography of romance, French culture and the coup de foudre, French model of romantic love, gender imbalance, good life as a balance between extremes, honoring womanly hopes, independent woman, insincere hopelessness, Jeanne Hersch, lawbreaking for the sake of a better world, le coup de foudre, libertine Gnosticism, lovers in Paris, medieval romance, modern woman, nihilism as pretense, nonviolent resistance, noticing the romantic spark, objective self-examination, objective self-knowledge, ontology of romantic love, outliving one's love, outliving romantic love, personal histories, Phenomenology, pretended maturity, professional woman, reductive explanations for romantic love, resistance and non-resistance, romance and self protection, romance as novelistic, romance tales as encoded Gnostic tracts, romantic approach of French vs. American women, Romantic Love, romantic love and psychology, romantic love and the experts, romantic love and theoretical explanations, romantic love as a law onto itself, romantic love as sanity in depth, romantic love as temporary, romantic love treated as abnormal, romantic love treated as madness, romantic love vs. seduction, saving the liberal arts, studying romance, taking romantic love seriously, the strategy of being a woman, the stroke of lightning, the Tristan template, the world has no room for romance, Tristan and Iseult, true love, trusting romantic love, Upper East Side, well-balanced life, woman philosopher
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Micro-Metaphysics
Related Content: What Do Women Want? | My Journey Within | What a Woman Needs is Philosophy | Call No Woman Happy | The Other Culture War | As Philosophy Goes …
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, 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, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Adam and Eve, Aristotle's Metaphysics, astrophysics, beyond physics, Big Answers, boundaries of ordinary life, boundaries of sensibility, cafe conversation, cause of causes, causes and freedom, conversational map, conversational tact, cosmogony, current feminist theories, deciphering women, decoding men, desire to know, desires forfeited, determinism and free will, ejsy ep, evil and women, facts and values, feminist abstractions, feminist politics, figuring out women and men, friends’ undiscussed topics, knowing what we need to know, life-terrain, logos of the cosmos, mapping the personal world, mapping women’s landscapes, men’s fears regrets hopes, meta ta physika, metaphysics of daily life, micro-metaphysics, mind and matter, new scientific frontier, personal landmarks, personal world, secret springs of action, secrets of daily life, sources of morality, tactful silence, The Big Bang, the big picture, the Little Picture, the real story, ultimate explanation, what women don't say, what women don’t disclose, women and men, women friends, women's conversational disclosures, women’s fears regrets hopes, women’s reunions, women’s undiscussed topics, World of Desire, zones of silence
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Introduction to Womanhood
Lately, I’ve been going through a medley of sources on Woman’s condition. Est-ce que vous ne plaignez pas le sort des femmes? asks a character in a play by Alfred de Musset way back in 1833. Do you not pity … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, 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, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, 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, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, 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, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic feminism, achieving one’s life project, cultural norms, cultural norms and women, current feminism, current feminist theory, Dumped: Stories of Women Unfriending Women She Writes Press 2015, external resistance, fallback plans, feminism and literature, feminist problematic, fiction as the mirror of reality, fictional short stories, fictional stories, foundations of feminism, gender and power relations, Gender Trouble by Judith Butler, get in touch with your feelings, getting one’s bearings, idealization and real-life, identifying one’s life project, identifying one’s predominant desire, ideology and real women, inescapable duty, inner resistance, language and gender relations, le sort des femmes, Les Caprices de Marianne by Alfred de Musset, life-shaping preference, light on the path for women, living a sincere life, living one’s story, living with purpose, living without purpose, mapping the feminist problematic, men and women in contemporary culture, men and women in present culture, mother-daughter love, mother-daughter relations, narrative and objectivity, negotiating one’s desires, negotiating one’s preferences, nineteenth-century fiction, obscuring the feminist problematic, oppression and dominance, patriarchy, pay as you go, perfection and reality, pity for men, pity for women, Plan A, second wave feminism, shaping a human life, shaping one’s life, sharing purposful lives, sharing purposive lives, sharing stationary lives, Short Story Masterpieces by American Women Writers Dover 2014, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, stationary lives, status of men, sympathy earned, sympathy for women, terrain of resistances, testing one’s sincerity, the female condition, the male condition, the romantic emotion, the search for purpose, the story of one’s life, the test of real life, theoretical thinking about women, third wave feminism, unbiased narrator, victimized women, woman’s condition, woman’s lot, womanhood, women and ideology, women and power relations, women and psychological theories, women dumped by women, women helping women, women misleading women, women supporting women, women unfriending women, women writers, women’s passivity, World of Desire
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Is Spirituality Natural?
In last week’s column, I visited the phases of our human development, from infancy to adulthood, as assembled by philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum in Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of the Emotions. Despite my own high regard for Martha Nussbaum, … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immortality, institutional power, 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, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged boundaries and methods of the sciences, boundaries of science, boundaries of the sciences, cross-cultural spiritual developmental stages, cross-cultural spirituality, cultural norms, culturally approved beliefs, Dante and Beatrice, developmental psychology and Martha Nussbaum, disgust in children, envy in children, framing research programs, getting to health in adulthood, groupthink, happy endings in novels, high-functioning adulthood, human developmental stages, infant anxiety, infant helplessness, Is physics foundational?, jealousy in children, learning from experience, life lessons, life projects, Lisa Miller’s The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving, Lisa Miller’s work in developmental psychology, live and learn, logical positivism, making life plans, making sense of life experiences, Martha C. Nussbaum’s Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of the Emotions, natural spirituality and success in life, natural spirituality and thriving adulthood, natural spirituality’s outcomes, new research in spiritual development, personal sense-making, Philip Kitcher’s What’s the Use of Philosophy?, philosophers of science, philosophic work today, philosophy and science, philosophy can clarify life plans, philosophy clarifying life, philosophy’s present-day tasks, present day work in philosophy, romantic idealization, Romantic Love, Science setting the norm, Science vs nonsense, Science vs sciences, shame in children, spiritual development, spiritual developmental stages, spiritual experience vs settled science, spirituality, spirituality and depression, spirituality and psychology, spirituality and romance, spirituality as protective, spirituality encouraged, supporting natural spirituality, the Other is a lot like us, Tristan and Iseult, true love, true love in novels, true love in the Bible, uses of philosophy, What does the Science say?
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As Philosophy Goes …
I hold the view, borrowed from G. W. F. Hegel, the nineteenth-century’s primo philosopher of history, that philosophy plays an oversized role in shaping human events. So do earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, global warming periods, plagues and nasty fights over water … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic martyrdom, academic power struggles, American Philosophical Association, Ann Gary, APA’s Proceedings and Addresses, are people like machines, brainwashing, can machines replace people, can you live inside your philosophy, Catholic convert, cognitive psychology, communicating across difference, competition between underdogs, David Chalmers, Eleonore Stump, Epistemology, facial recognition, fallacy of scattershot condemnation, fashionable ideas, feminist philosophy, feminist quarrels, forced confessions, groupthink, Hegel, human knowledge vs AI, human suffering, human thinking and AI, Hypatia, idealized knowledge, Incommensurable Otherness, intellectual autobiography, Jennifer Nagel, John Dewey Lectures, Jonathan Schaffer, learning models, logical positivists, Mariana Ortega, mechanist materialism as worldview, medieval logic, metaphysics, mind/body problem, moral one-upmanship, opposition to women in philosophy, people compared to machines, philosophical account of ultimacy, philosophical fashions, philosophical friendship, philosophizing about human suffering, philosophy and nonquantifiable experience, philosophy and the future, philosophy and worldviews, philosophy as a profession, philosophy as a truth-seeking discipline, philosophy as cultural influence, philosophy as life-shaping, philosophy lectures, philosophy of history, philosophy transcends the tyranny of fashion, philosophy's political influence, physicalism, physicalism and reductionism, physicalist worldview, Plato's view of knowledge, prediction errors, primary and secondary qualities, primary qualities, pulling moral rank, Reign of Terror, right opinion vs knowledge in Plato, Saint Augustine, Salem witch trials, sexism, the politics of philosophy, theory of everything, thinking machines, Thomas Aquinas, true knowledge vs opinion, Vienna Circle, wisdom as true knowledge, wisdom knowledge vs everyday knowledge, women in philosophy
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The Absolute is Up for Grabs
Recent changes in what was formerly considered socially okay may be seen in two incidents I couldn’t sidestep. A long-time woman friend figures in the first incident. We’ve been in each other’s lives since the time in Paris when we … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, Idealism-, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged agenda driven misunderstanding, ancient religious underlayers, anti-Judaism as a culture import, Asian vs Western religious mindsets, Christian myths about Jews, collective guilt, competition for the covenant, competitive theologies, covenant and who God loves best, culturally embedded distortions, David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, diplomacy in friendship, discerning right from wrong, discerning the moral principle, Doctrine of Deicide, extra-historical spirituality, false naivete, faux pas, flipping moral status, friendship at risk, good guys and bad guys, goodwill confronting malice, historical religions, imperiled friendship, innocence and guilt in history, inverting moral relations, Israel’s right of self-defense, Israel’s right to exist, Jewish timeline, killing Socrates, malice in social settings, moral discernment, Oct 7 and ex-friends, Oct 7 and friendship, pulling moral rank, pulling rank on Jews, pulling theological rank on Jews, religious acculturation, rhetorical questions as insults, Secular Left’s ex-Christians, social insult, social life as war, social navigation, socially acceptable, St. Ambrose and Jewish legal rights, St. Ambrose and the burned synagogue, St. Augustine and Jewish legal rights, status rivalry, the burden of Jewish history, theological rank and social rank, theological social climbing, theology and modern Israel, unconscious cultural baggage, unholy theological doctrines, victimhood competition, victims and victimizers, victims falsely accused, victims treated as victimizers, what is absolute for a culture, woman friend, youthful friendships
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The Big Picture
This morning at brunch, Jerry asked me what I thought were the big philosophic problems of our time. What are the great questions and concerns? I had to take a few moments to squint at the sky and describe whatever … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, 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, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, Idealism-, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romantic love, 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, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Advaita Vedanta, ancients v moderns, Antonio Gramsci, Aristotle and teleology, Asian religious systems, Biblical Israel and history, brute power v functional power in Plato’s Republic, class of intellectuals, Confucianism, Copernican Revolution, cultural heritage, current philosophic problems, Dante’s physics, Dante’s worldview, Darwin’s survival of the fittest, deciphering history, decoding the unconscious, deconstructionism, discovering nature’s laws, discovering nature’s ways, Eastern religious systems, Eric Voegelin, erotic patterns, escape from history, fact/value split, facts and values, Freud's unconscious, Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, globalization and cross-cultural awareness, globalization of cultural influence, God and mathematics, good faith and the unconscious, Greek philosophy, groupthink, health and the mind, holistic medicine, how to be healthy, human rights, hypocrisy and the unconscious, iatrogenic illness, intellectual class, interesting times, Israel and the duty to remember, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Jean Francois Leotard, judgmentalism, Kepler’s God and mathematics, living in history, living one’s philosophy, living rightly in nature, maintaining health, marital conversations, meaning of history, Michel Foucault, mind and matter, mind and mechanism, Modernity, modernity and human values, moral rank-pulling, natural healing, natural science and philosophy, nature and history, nature and human beings, nature and purposes, Newton and the Enlightenment, Nietzsche’s will to power, nocebo effect, one’s place in history, Paris, Parisian philosophers and thinkers, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, philosophic distinctions, philosophic questions, philosophical conversation, philosophy and the sciences, placebo effect, post-modern fashions, postmodern opinion shapers, postmodernism, preserving nature, pretend revolutionaries, quantum mechanics, quarrel between ancients and moderns, recording the story, regions of experience, remembering the story, respecting one’s body, respecting the other, revolutionary pretense, rights of individuals, ruining nature, saying what you believe, seekers for truth, self-knowledge, seventeenth century, society and nature, speaking truth to power, spoiling nature, spontaneous remissions, the Bible and divine commands, the Bible and memory, the big picture, the idea of history, the observer and elementary particles, the post-modern unconscious, the Ten Commandments, the unconscious and hidden agendas, transcendence and immanence, truth-seeking, unconscious motivations, understanding the other, Western philosophy, wheel of karma
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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
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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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Women, Women, Women
I know of two instances where fair-minded young mothers brought their child custody disputes before a judge. In each case, the fact that the judge turned out to be a woman caused the plaintiff’s heart to sink, anticipating the worst … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, Idealism-, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, journalism, 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, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Beauvoir and Sartre, believe your lying eyes, biology vs ideology, child custody disputes, equity feminism, existentialism and feminism, faculty women, femininity and human nature, feminism and the human story, feminism and true love, feminism's absent theory, feminism's philosophic foundation, feminisms gains and losses, feminisms victory and defeats, feminist activists, feminist anti-essentialism, feminist betrayal, feminist case histories, feminist illusions, feminist infighting, feminist magazine, feminist theory, feminists and feminine nature, French existentialism, goddess worship, happy-ever-after, Harriet Taylor, hen party, husbandly protection, Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women, matriarchy, Phyllis Chesler’s Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, popular girl, postmodernism and feminism, public feminists, romantic endings, Sartre and freedom, Sartre’s betrayal of Beauvoir, Sartre’s Fundamental Project, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, stigmatizing women, true love, utilitarianism, woman philosopher, women and conformism, women as fair-minded, women confidantes, women not different from men, women philosophers, women's vulnerability, women’s acculturation, women’s gossip, women’s illusions, women’s legal equality, women’s negative freedom, women’s ruthlessness to women, women’s unkindness to women, yin and yang
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