Category Archives: propaganda

The Absolute is Up for Grabs

Posted on October 24, 2023 by Abigail

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 | 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 | Leave a comment

The Romance of Life

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Abigail

There are people who suppose, whenever they learn of an act of unbelievable cruelty, that it must have been done in reaction to some unseen but equally towering grievance. To such people, the forces in the human situation are taken … 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, 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, 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, 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, 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 Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", action prompts reaction, acts of cruelty, assessing inward costs, authenticating apologies, blaming the victim, confrontations with malevolence, costs of moral action, costs of moral evaluation, country club antisemitism, cruel to the kind, deliberate evil, denial and displacement, deserving a happy ending, deserving to win, dialectical conversation, disguised insult, evidence of a healthy life, excuses for evil acts, fighting the good fight, forces in the room, forgiveness as social conformity, forgiveness for the sake of appearance, forgiveness so as not to make a scene, heaven on earth, helping the aggressor, heroes and heroic acts, human values expressed in physicalist terms, human values expressed in value-neutral language, human values understood as force and counterforce, insincere atonement, interpersonal harmony, inward costs of moral action, justice without mercy, kind to the cruel, kind to the kind, life themes, long term friendships, merciless to the merciless, mercy without justice, misdirected compassion, misplaced objectivity, moral judgement vs judgmentalism, moral neutrality, moral realities, Newton's Third Law of Motion, objectivity as a cop-out, people analyzed as billiard balls, physicalist analogies, physicalist analogy to moral reality, powers in play, premature forgiveness, pretended apology, pro forma apologies, psychologizing cruelty, psychologizing evil, pulling the rug from under, rationalizing antisocial acts, rationalizing bizarre behavior, recurring themes in life, scars of moral combat, smiles that bare the teeth, smiling insult, social harmony, social insult, social life as war, social miscalculation, solving social mysteries, strategies of denial, taking advantage of good manners, taking advantage of social norms, the pose of objectivity, the romance of life, to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, transvaluation of values, truth-seeking, unwarranted forgiveness, valuing harmony, victim presumed guilty, what was she wearing, when politeness becomes vulnerability, willful harm | Leave a comment

Why Choose the Jews?

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Abigail

It feels like forever – so changed are the times! – but it’s only been two days at this writing. Starting in the early hours of October 7, Hamas operatives surprised and overwhelmed Israeli surveillance and defenses at the Gaza … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, 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, 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, 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, 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, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged accepting the historical condition, anti-semitism, anti-semitism on campus, anti-Zionism, asymmetrical relations between siblings, asymmetrical relations between the sexes, Biblical insights, biblical Israel, Biblical narratives and history, blaming the Jews, book of Genesis, Cain and Abel, casus belli, choosing the Jews, competitve victimhood, curing anti-semitism, curing sibling rivalry, defending the oppressed, deliberate targeting of civilians, escaping history, explaining anti-semitism, expulsion from Eden, families under siege, fashionable oppression, fashionable victimhood, Genesis as a theory of history, Genesis as an introduction to history, gnostic escapism, Hamas operatives, Hegel, Hegel’s theory of history, history’s cost, ill-timed visit to Israel, incurable human relations, incurable situations, inheriting the human situation, Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, Israeli defenses, Israeli surveillance, James Baldwin, Jewish students and professors, Jews and philosophy of history, Jews and theories of history, killing your brother, knowing when to run, Kojeve, Kojeve’s theory of history, living in history, living with God in history, Marx, Marx’s theory of history, no place is safe, oppression of women, origin of history, philosphers of history, privileging the underdog, public war crimes, purpose of higher education, refusing history, selective anti-oppression, selective condemnations, selective outrage, sibling rivalry, suffering of mortality, surprise attack, the chosen people, the fall into history, the Jewish homeland, The Longest Hatred, the mark of Cain, the reality of living in history, the suffering of the human condition, the suffering of work, theology and history, theories of history, undermining higher education, unfashionable oppression, vulnerability of women, why Cain kills Abel, Yom Kippur attack | 2 Comments

Understanding Evil

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Abigail

The French say, to understand all is to forgive all – but, where evil is concerned, forgiving all would be a bad idea. I have written a whole book on the topic, called (accurately enough) A Good Look at Evil. … 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, 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, 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, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, racism, 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 | Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, antinomian utopians, avoiding victimization, charisma of the wicked, Christianity and sin, classifying evil, conditions for evil, coping with evil, criteria for evil, dangerous individuals, dealing with evil, deceived by bad guys, defining evil as the absence of good, defining evil psychologically, deliberate evil, discerning the presence of wickedness, empathy with evil, Evil, evil and personal responsibility, evil and the vulnerable, evil as a force, evil as contagious, evil’s disguises, evil’s external conditions, evil’s influence, evil’s ingenious disguises, evil’s reductionist explanations, evil’s religious disguises, fashionable misunderstandings, fear of evil, inherent nature of evil, inherent power of wickedness, Judaism and sin, knowing right from wrong, knowing when not to forgive, malign influence, masquerading as religious, moral danger, nature vs nurture, overcoming adversity, overeducated misunderstandings, philosophical concept of evil, philosophy’s treatment of evil, power of the corrupt to corrupt, profaning what is sacred, recognizing evil, reductionist explanations of evil, religious pretense and wickedness, resisting external conditions for evil, seeing the wolf before he sees you, strategies of evil, the habit doesn’t make the monk, the inner life of the wicked, the spell of evil, to understand is to forgive, underprivilege and evil, victimized by evil, villains in novels, what is evil | Leave a comment

Not Getting Over It

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Abigail

When one has been through a difficult passage in the course of one’s life, it’s common to get the collective advice from Job’s Comforters: get over it! I’ve always thought that was very bad advice – except maybe for horses … 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, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, femininity, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, Idealism-, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, 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, mysticism, ontology, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, 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, science, 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, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged a man’s kiss is his signature, Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, academic conference, academic presentation, academic tact, anthropology, anti-Nazi intellectual, APSA, attuned people, bearing false witness, believing defamations, biblical Israel, Biblical self-criticism, connoisseurship, continental beauty, culture and spirituality, difficult life passage, direction and order in history, discerning evil, discreet romantic attachment, disparagement of Biblical Israel, Ephrussi family, Eric Voegelin Society, erotic assessments, escaping the Gestapo, EVS conference in LA, falsely accusing Jews, get over it, get through it, get to the bottom of it, good and evil, groupthink, high society romance, intellectual originality, intellectual tact, Job’s comforters, Los Angeles, moral neutrality as social science, neuropathy treatments, neuropathy treatments at Loma Linda, openmindedness, openness with discernment, original thinker, patrons of the arts, perennial anti-semitism, Pharisaic parables, Pharisaic self-criticism, philosophy of history, political philosopher, political science conference, political theorist, poltical science, presenting academic paper, pulling punches, Rabbi Jesus, reductionism and anti-reductionism, secret love, self-criticism and spirituality, slander is always believed, sociology, spiritual breakthroughs, spirituality in culture, spiritually open, study of cultures, suffer it through, the study of human beings, Vienna Circle, Voegelin and Jewish thinkers, Voegelin and Martin Buber, Voegelin as anti-Nazi, Voegelin’s Israel and Revelation, Voegelin’s Order and History, well-meant platitudes, windows of the soul | Leave a comment

Overload

Posted on August 29, 2023 by Abigail

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 →

Remembrances

Posted on August 22, 2023 by Abigail

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, postmodernism, 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 | 1 Comment

The Big Picture

Posted on August 15, 2023 by Abigail

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 | 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 | 1 Comment

Getting a Grip

Posted on August 8, 2023 by Abigail

Lately, I’ve been in a funny sort of crisis: the crisis when nothing is going wrong — and that’s what’s wrong! It’s as if the distance between my present place and its boundaries is equidistant on every side. Nothing inclines me to … Continue reading →

How to Live One’s Story

Posted on August 1, 2023 by Abigail

When I’ve talked about the need to defend one’s story, I’ve had in mind my experience that ill-wishers can show astonishing astuteness in picking out key elements of the life project or story they choose to attack, even before the … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, 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, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, Idealism-, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, 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, peace, philosophy, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, 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, 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 a story’s normative aspect, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", acting on principle, advice from women friends, Afghanistan, analyzing real life situations, attacking one’s story, Bible stories, childbirth out of wedlock, combat veteran, corporate life, corporate politics, defending one’s story, discerning one’s story, doing the right thing, driving with unchecked emotions, emotional tug of war, evil’s timetable, fictional dilemmas, fighting for one’s story, finding the normative element, gaining the world and losing your soul, God’s timetable, good and evil, heaven and hell, ideal solution, identifying with fictional characters, improving one’s story, Iraq, Israelites, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, life's predicaments, living a story, losing one’s story, loss of a child, moral configurations, moral conflicts in fiction, Netflix’s The Virgin River, pregnancy of the other woman, real advice vs slogans, realistic idealism, reconciling realism and idealism, risking one’s job, romantic triangles, sharing grief, small town life, spiritual configurations, the achievable story, the cost of saving one’s story, the ideal as unreal, the ideal story, the lesser evil, the moral landscape, the spiritual landscape, transcendence vs reductionism, unreal solutions, virtue’s timetable, what’s the right thing?, women friends | Leave a comment

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