Category Archives: Memoir
Overload
Straight ahead for us this week is a trip to California, with complex, hybrid purposes. Following an academic weekend in L.A., where both of us are presenting papers at the Eric Voegelin Society (which is a group within the American … 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, Childhood, 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, 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, Memoir, memory, Messianic Age, Mind Control, Modern Women, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, Mortality, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Race, radicalism, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, 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, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged academic combat, academic etiquette of atheism, academic honor, academic hygiene, academic meetings, American Political Science Association, anti-nazi thinker, APSA, Bible as life in history, Biblical self criticism, Biblical supersessionism, biblical truth, Cain and Abel, cleaning up your act, covert anti-semitisim, Eric Voegelin, Eric Voegelin Society, Eric Voegelin's Israel and Revelation, Esau’s complaint, escaping the Gestapo, escapist transcendence, fairness in history, fight for the blessing, fight to be the favorite, George Foote Moore’s Judaism, God as Witness, gratitude in history, historical timeline, historicity of the Bible, human nature, human nature in history, in touch with feelings, Jacob and Esau, Jacob steals the blessing, Jews as history’s record keepers, justice and chronology, life on the timeline, linear history, linear timeline, neuropathy treatments, non-dogmatic spirituality, objectivity in history, philosophy of history, presenting academic papers, preserving minority opinions, preserving the divine image, preserving the human presence, rabbinic discussion, reading between the lines, repressed history, respecting minority opinions, seeking truth in history, sibling rivalry, spiritual factor in history, surviving the test of time, surviving to tell the story, The Longest Hatred, theory of history, truth-seekers, uncovering the subtext, under-served features of the human story
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Remembrances
When people are no longer present to each other, or able – in an unforced way – to walk in and out of each other’s days, the risk is that spatial distance will become psychic distance. That’s when measures of … Continue reading
Posted in Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, 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, Female Power, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, Journalism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Martyrdom, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modern Women, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, Mortality, motherhood, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Poetry, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Reading, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, Romanticism, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, Sexuality, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged almost a saint, antebellum house, career comeback, career crash, closing a house, down to earth, Downeast Maine, emotional ties, family home, fixing the fight, friend as a witness, friendly silences, generational roots, getting tenure, groupthink, homesickness, jury bias, keeping old friends, lifelong friends, localism, longing for a friend, more fish in the sea, most beautiful girl, natural aristocrats, near saints, nostalgia, old friends, philosophy professor, philosophy students, Plato, reconstituting relationships, remembered years, remembering friendships, resilience, resisting defamation, resisting gossip, saints, small town approval, small town life, small town smarts, spiritual shelter, sports writer, stored in memory, surviving one’s parents, the face of love, unfinished friendship, winning a job fight, witnessing one’s story
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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 Mind, Philosophy, Poetry, Political, Political Movements, politics, politics of ideas, post modernism, 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, seventeeth century, Sex Appeal, Sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, terrorism, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "The future is the past entered through another door", adversos Judaeos, American in a European bathhouse, anti-Judaism in patristic writtings, anti-Judaism isn't that old, anti-Judaism on the timeline, anti-semite's Jewish friends, beauty of Israeli girls, beauty of women, beginnings of Homo sapiens, best friends, body language of equality, body language of oppression, body language of self-confidence, changes in how Jews are viewed, changes in relations between the sexes, children of Holocaust survivors, chosen people's feminine beauty, Christian character development and friendship, Christian formative years, Christian friends, Christian high culture's anti-Judaism, Christian saints and anti-Judaism, Christian upbringing, church doctrine, church dogma, conversation between friends, cost to Jews of Enlightenment emancipation, cure for anti-semitism, curing history, curing religious history, faculty union, generational change in cultural patterns, getting it right this time, global anti-feminism, healing Christian-Jewish history, Hegel's Absolute, internalizing oppression, Jewish emancipation in Europe, Jewish identity, Jewish rights in history, Jews and Christians, Jews and the European Enlightenment, liberation of women, loss of childhood, loss of one's world, loss of parents, male dominance in Homo sapiens, mending the past, nakedness without complexes, Nazi abrogation of Jewish rights, nostalgia for childhood, nostalgia for parental home, patristic anti-Judaism, patristic reworking of Jewish scripture, persecution of Jewish students, philosopher in a youth hostel, philosopher's eye view of women, philosophy and Brooklyn College, Professional Staff Congress of CUNY, PSC and anti-semitism, religious politics, reversibility of time, Rosemary Ruether's Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism, self confidence of Jewish students, self-approval of the persecuted, sudden changes in cultural patterns, theological rational for anti-Jewish policies, theological seminaries, theology and culture, trust and conversation, Turkish baths in Jerusalem, unfettered conversation, unrestricted conversation, William Johnson Cory's Heraclitus, women's equality, worldwide anti-feminism
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The Owl of Minerva Takes Flight
“The owl of Minerva takes flight only at dusk.” So wrote G. W. F. Hegel, the nineteenth century’s major philosopher of history. By that he meant that any given phase of history can be understood only in retrospect – after … Continue reading
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, 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, 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, Industrial Revolution, 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, Modern Women, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, Mortality, motherhood, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Phenomenology of Mind, Philosophy, Poetry, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Racism, radicalism, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romanticism, science, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, Sexuality, 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 ancient skepticism, anthropic principle, Antony Flew’s There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, brainwashing, cancel culture and desire, cancel culture and social power, chance and life’s origin, coerced confessions, culture and the absolute, culture and ultimate truth, Darwin and chance, Darwinian evolution, decoding present history, desire and erotic skepticism, erotic manipulation, foreseeing the future, Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama and liberal democracy, G.W.F. Hegel, George Orwell's 1984, guilt and social power, Hegel and history, historical eros, ideology and tyranny, intelligibility of history, laws of probability and evolution, liberal democratic values, Mind Control, Modernity, my story and humanity’s story, natural purposes, ostracism and social power, owl of Minerva, personal story and world history, philosophy and teleology, postmodern skepticism, postmodernism and denial, psychoanalysis, purposiveness in nature, reading the Zeitgeist, Robert Jay Lifton's Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China, skepticism, skepticism and biological nature, skepticism in history, Sy Garte’s The Works of His Hands: A Scientist’s Journey from Atheism to Faith, teleology, the big picture, the bird’s eye view of history, The Owl of Minerva and history, theology and teleology, Ukraine and Western nations, Ukraine as a test of values, understanding the present, world history and liberal democracy
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