Category Archives: Memoir

Admiration

Posted on October 9, 2018 by Abigail

Admiration In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise. Despite W. H. Auden, and his poem, In Memory of W. B. Yeats, we live in a time whose typical mood is suspicion. It’s almost the … Continue reading →

Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, books, Childhood, Chivalry, Christianity, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, 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, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, motherhood, non-violence, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Poetry, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged accommodation, Adam Kirsch, admiration, ambiguous, appreciation, avoiding ill will, bad checks, best friends, brothers and sisters, bungalow colony, child/parent duties, civil disobedience, Classical philosophy, college friends, concerts, counterfeit compensation, creditors, cutting a figure, deadbeat sibling, deadbeats, Diana Trilling, disambiguous, emotional debts, emotional unfairness, enabling, epistolary relationships, fairness in family, family circle, family relations, family unfairness, filial obligations, filial piety, financial debts, friendship breakup, graduate school, Henry M. Rosenthal, high culture, intellectual influence, intellectuals’ correspondence, irate creditors, legal tender, Life in Culture: Selected Letters of Lionel Trilling, Lionel Trilling, literary critic, looking like an intellectual, looking the part, love and equality, making your mark, male friendship, martyr complex, misguided fairness, mom loves you best, money, money and love, money and truth, moral imperative, New York intellectuals, only child, opinion shaping, parental favor, Paul Ricoeur, Plato, Plato’s Crito, praise, Public Intellectual, quarreling over inheritance, recitals, reprove your brother, reprove your sister, reproving the wrongdoer, righting wrongs, self-content, shirked obligations, sibling rivalry, Socrates, sour grapes, Stanley Rosen, sticking to the truth, suspicion, symbols and metaphors, the 1930’s, the Great Depression, the hermeneutics of suspicion, the rip-off, unfairness in family, unpaid debts, W. H. Auden, W.H. Auden's In Memory of W B Yeats, Watchung Mountains of New Jersey | Leave a comment

What’s Your Evidence?

Posted on October 2, 2018 by Abigail

What’s Your Evidence? In the claims and counter-claims of real life, what is to count as evidence? Recently, I had occasion to try to defend myself to a third party, against the damaging claims of a person who had been … Continue reading →

Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, bureaucracy, Chivalry, Cities, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Films, 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, 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, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Phenomenology of Mind, Philosophy, Poetry, Political, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Race, radicalism, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, 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, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged a way out, accusations, admissible evidence, Arbitration, argument, artistic film, available options, being believed, believing victims, closing argument, confirming witness, counter-accusations, counter-argument, counter-claims, court case, court papers, credibility, credulity, cross examination, damaging claims, documentary evidence, emotional case, England, escapism, evidence, favorable ruling, finding an opening, friendship, frustration, Gnosticism, grossed out, guidance, hanging in, imperfect world, impossibilities, judge, just and unjust, justice, lawyer friend, lawyers, legal action, legal defense, legal merit, legal proceedings, Maya, no exit, options, Paper trail, probative evidence, real life, reliable witness, repairing the world, scales of justice, self-defense, sense of justice, settlement out of court, showing up, social cut, social establishment, social insignificance, social life, social snub, social weight, staying real, suicide, testimony, testimony under oath, The Bookshop, topdog, underdog, union counsel, unreal world, unreliable witness, utopian, utopian ideology, victimizing, witness, witnessing | 2 Comments

Are People Really Good at Heart?

Posted on September 25, 2018 by Abigail

Are People Really Good at Heart? “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” These words — set down as a belief, not a question — are among the last lines in the diary … Continue reading →

Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Childhood, Chivalry, Christianity, Cities, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Films, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, Jews, Journalism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Martyrdom, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, non-violence, Ontology, Oppression, pacifism, Past and Future, Peace, Poetry, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, Romanticism, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, social construction, Social Conventions, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged acts of kindness, American idealists, being set up, believing illusions, believing the best, Bergen Belsen, betrayal to the Nazis, Black American Exiles, concentration camp, death in the desert, defenselessness, Egyptian authorities, enabling, enabling evildoers, Fulbright scholars, gestures of kindness, good-heartedness, hiding from the Nazis, Holocaust victims, human goodness, human kindness, human nature, idealistic values, Isis attack, John Armstrong, kindness as natural, Kindness Tour, kindness tourists, Lauren Geoghegan and Jay Austin, life lessons, lowering defenses, misguided trust, mistakes of kindness, mitzvot, mortal miscalculations, naivete, non-violence, Parisian expatriate, reforming evildoers, repairing the world, Richard Wright, safeguarding good people, satyagraha, saving good people, The Diary of Anne Frank, the goodness of others, The Shoah, thirst and exposure, tragedy, trusting people, Tweety bird | 6 Comments

Delusions of Intellection

Posted on September 11, 2018 by Abigail

Delusions of Intellection “People live and die by ideas!” “You are what you think – much more than what you eat!” With encouraging words like these, I would try to persuade students in an intro course to see the study … Continue reading →

Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Hegel, hegemony, Heroes, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, Jews, Journalism, Law, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Messianic Age, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, nineteenth-century, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, Political, Political Movements, politics, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reductionism, relationships, Renaissance, Roles, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, terrorism, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Albanian student, Alexander Bloom’s Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World, American assimilation, Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, Arabian student, bad ideas, bad karma, Brooklyn College of CUNY, careerism, children of immigrants, class inequality, class war, communism, cultural assimilation, delusions, delusive thoughts, dialecticians, division of labor, educated delusions, fall of Soviet Union, first generation Americans, flawed ideas, Great Soviet Experiment, hope of the future, immigrants, Indian student, intellection, intellectual delusions, intellectual diversity, intellectuals, Jewish intellectuals, Jewish quotas, Karl Marx, Karl Marx’s The German Ideology, left wing writers, Marxism, Moscow demonstration, multiculturalism, New Masses magazine, opportunism, parental dreams, Partisan Review, peer approval, philosophy, philosophy professor, philosophy students, pied piper, risk of belief, Russian student, self-deception, Somalian student, specialization, teaching philosophy, Texan student, the 1930’s, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes Terror Repression, the Great Depression, the Other, The Soviet Union, thought world | Leave a comment

Private Matters

Posted on September 4, 2018 by Abigail

Private Matters The man I love has gone through harrowing surgery this week. It was not one of the operations currently at the frontier of the surgical arts. Once, it was. Now it’s about at the middle. Surgeons do it … Continue reading →

Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, Institutional Power, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Martyrdom, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, novels, Ontology, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Poetry, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, Romanticism, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, Sexuality, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 'till death do us part, academe, acceptance, action fields, aloneness, beshert, broken history, bypass surgery, cutting-edge surgery, difficult recoveries, facing the abyss, falling in love, falsified life, friendship, Heart surgery, human entanglements, husband and wife, institutional supports, life renewal, life system, limit situations, living artificially, living naturally, long term storage, Manhattan parks and museums, marriage for modern women, marriage vows, meaningful work, mind/body relations, moral accounting, moral record, moral support, New York City life, ordeal, philosophic commitment, philosophical articles, philosophy professor, professor/student interaction, recovery process, relativism, search for truth, short term storage, single life, solitude., state-of-the-art medical care, survivor’s predicament, taking risks, the city one loves, the old neighborhood, true love, truthfulness, untangling life knots, Upper East Side, women’s identity | 3 Comments

Nudnikerie: My Album of Antisemites

Posted on August 14, 2018 by Abigail

Nudnikerie: My Album of Antisemites Nudnik: “A nudnik is not just a nuisance; to merit the status of nudnik, a nuisance must be the most persistent, talkative, obnoxious, indomitable, and indefatigable nag.” The Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten. As … Continue reading →

Posted in Absurdism, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, Biblical God, Chivalry, Christianity, Cities, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, History, history of ideas, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, Jews, Law, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Love, Martyrdom, master/slave relation, Memoir, memory, Messianic Age, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, non-violence, Oppression, pacifism, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Political, Political Movements, politics, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Race, radicalism, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, secular, Seduction, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", ad hominem attack, bigotry, Christian friends, collegiality violated, dangerous pessimism, dark corners, dark memory, double standard, European Femininity, European women, evasion, G.I. Bride, German complicity, good guys, groupthink, Hitler’s reading list, Hitler’s sport events, in the wrong job, insulting speech, Jerry L. Martin's "God: an Autobiography as Told to a Philosopher", Jewish neighbors, Jewish opinion, loaded questions, memory, naturalistic worldview, outdoor cafes, outdoor prayer, peaceniks, personal stories, picking a quarrel, prayer as last resort, religious experience, religious turn, requirements of priesthood, self-deception, self-righteousness, Shoah, talking to God, the Holocaust, the human soul, the Other, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, war-time trauma, womanly arts, wrong life path, wrong vocation | Leave a comment

Homage to Milbridge

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Abigail

Homage to Milbridge Last week, Jerry and I spent two whole days in Milbridge, Maine, bookended by travel days of which (the return trip) the less said the better. About the state of Maine, I smile when, looking down, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Action, Afterlife, Art, Art of Living, beauty, Childhood, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Faith, Femininity, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, Guilt and Innocence, Heroes, hidden God, Ideality, Identity, Immorality, Immortality, Law, Legal Responsibility, Love, Memoir, memory, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, nineteenth-century, Ontology, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Power, presence, promissory notes, Psychology, relationships, Religion, Roles, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status of women, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "The Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes's Secret; Spinoza's Way" by Henry M. Rosenthal; ed. Abigail L. Rosenthal, "You Can't Go Home Again", Abigail's Adages, Alentejo Coast, babes in the woods, Bangor Airport, barrel racing, canoeing, cantering, city slickers, coming home, damaging stories, death of parents, defamation, defamation disbelieved, divorce, Downeast, Ellsworth Maine, familiar landscapes, first marriage, fishing village, fun days, half acre, homecoming, imaginary feeling, job fight, landscapes, last illness, local ghosts, local sage, Maine, Maine Coast Memorial Hospital, Milbridge Day, Milbridge Maine, more fish in the sea, Narraguagus Bay, New York apartment, orphaned, outdoor games, parental presence, philosophic manuscript, picnics, Portugal, posthumous manuscript, posthumous publication, precognition, proofs of ownership, real feeling, reviews, right-of-way, rodeo, rural adventures, rural property, sailing, saleable property, selling the house, sense of direction, shore strip, slander, southern mansion, state fair, telling the whole town, town events, travel days, trials of life, triumphs of life, unsaleable property, unseen presences, victorious fights | Leave a comment

	Abigail on What’s Your Evidence?
	Penny Heiple, Three… on What’s Your Evidence?
	Abigail on Are People Really Good at…
	Penny Heiple, Three… on Are People Really Good at…
	Abigail on Are People Really Good at…

Category Archives: Memoir

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