Category Archives: peace
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
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 Ring of Gyges
There is a story that Plato tells in The Republic, his dialogue on political justice. Here’s how it goes. It starts with a man named Gyges. Everyone considered him to be a normal fellow. There was nothing odd about him. … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, agnosticism, alienation, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, 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, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, Nihilism, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, repairing the culture, roles, science, scientism, 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, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged ant colony behavior, ant nest assignments, ant social structures, changes in behavior when no one is watching, discharged from hospital, empathy, ethical choices under pressure, evolutionary ladder, fairness, fracture, functional obligations, good when someone is watching, goodness and observation, Gyges, healing and reflection, helpless patient, hospital experience, human nature, illness and insight, institutional indifference, Is the just man happier?, just vs unjust, philosopher of biology, philosophy from the bedside, physical rehab recovery, Plato, political justice, Sandra D. Mitchell's Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism, self-advocacy, selfish behavior, social advantages and disadvantages of acting right, social advantages of acting justly, social insects, Socrates, study of ant behavior, The Republic, The Ring of Gyges, the truth of human behavior, the view from the hospital bed, true self and social presence, unkind behavior, vulnerability and dignity, What are we?, when the cat is away the mice will play, witness to life, writing from recovery
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Easter Sunday
For my Christian friends, today is the day Jesus rose from the dead. O the stone was rolled away he’s no longer where he lay. Or so goes the country hymn. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Even analytic philosophers … 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, 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, 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
Tagged 36 righteous ones, analytic philosophers and theological claims, Cain and Abel, Christian doctrine, Christian transcendence vs Jewish immanence, Christian verticality vs Jewish historicity, Christian/Jewish theological differences, Christianity, country hymns, cultural norms, Edith Wyschogrod, faith-systems mutually challenged, historicity of the resurrection, inherited bigotry, inherited prejudice, intellectual risk, interfaith discussion, interfaith faux benevolence, Irving Greenberg, Irving Greenberg and the Resurrection, Jewish Presbyterian negotiations, Jewish Vatican negotiations, lamed vovnik, Michael Wyschogrod, people live and die by ideas, philosopher/theologian, phony mutual respect, platitudinous goodwill, questioning one’s assumptions, resurrection, risen Christ, rivalry for God’s love, search for truth, self-congratulatory goodwill, sibling rivalry and God, spiritual risk, theological negotiations, theological politics, theological rainbow group, theological rivalry, theology and sex appeal, unreal city in the future, Wyschogrod’s Rainbow Group
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