Category Archives: slave
Our Broken Stories
It’s Christmas Eve, which prompts a medley of reflections. On the one hand, for Christians it’s the night when the child is born who will redeem the world from sin. For Jews on the other hand, Nittel Nacht was the … 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, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, 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, 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, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "God and the Care for One's Story", antidotes to despair, battles unperceived, birth of redeemer, broken civilizational stories, broken cultural stories, broken heart, broken personal stories, Cain and Abel vs Joseph and his brothers, Christian-Jewish divide in personal experience, Christian-Jewish split in the psyche, Christmas Eve, Christmas for Jews, Christmas for Jews and Christians, Christmas reflections, despair and antidotes, father’s preferential love, God and the Care for One's Story, happy endings in ragged real-life, having a care for your story, heart break, hillbilly gospel, history’s problematic, I am your brother Joseph, Israelites in Egypt, Jesus and extra-historical rescue, Jesus and original sin, Jesus and the vertical dimension, Jesus as co-religionist, Jesus beyond doctrine, Jesus beyond religion, Jesus in country gospel, Jesus without anti-semitism, Jesus without doctrine, Jewish stories on the horizontal timeline, Jewish-Christian reconciliation, Joseph and his brothers, Joseph and Pharaoh’s dreams, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, Joseph in Egypt, Joseph interpreting dreams, Joseph meeting his brothers, Joseph testing his brothers, Joseph's coat of many colors, life as a war zone, mark of Cain, mental health crisis, Nittel Nacht, parental favoritism, Pharaoh’s precognitive dreams, preferential love, Rabbinic advice to stay home on Christmas Eve, real-life happy endings, reconciliations can’t erase the past, Red Foley’s I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, repairing broken stories, repressed guilt, return of anti-Jewish fratricide, return of the repressed, sibling murder, sibling rivalry, sibling rivalry in the Bible, sibling rivalry in the Book of Genesis, solving history’s problematic, the battlefield of life, the Christian story, the favorite wife, the Jewish story, the Joseph story, the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, the relationship between the Christian and Jewish stories, Torah Study, vertically oriented Christian stories, violence against Jews on Christmas Eve, winning the name Israel
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I Dreamed I Saw Hitler Last Night
Make no mistake, in my whole life Hitler has never appeared in any dream or daydream of mine. I don’t think about Hitler. He’s not in the iconography of my consciousness. This was also the first time I’d seen him … 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, 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, 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, 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 academic conference, academic discourse, academic discourse and shunning, academic discourse and unspoken taboos, academic lecture, academic lecture Q and A, academic ostracism, ancient Christianity, ancient Judaism, ancient theological quarrels, archaic thought layers, beyond feminism, body language of discourse, buried thought layers, conversion and rabbinic Judaism, coping strategy, dialectic and self-defense, dialogue and avoidance, disarming body language, early Christian saints, Early Christianity, feminine invisibility, feminism and social intelligence, first-century Judaism, following the argument, handling a situation, healthy discussion, historical imagination, instructive dreams, Jerusalem's Western Wall and the speaking stones, Jews and early Jesus movement, Jews and the afterlife, Jews during the time of Jesus, Judaism conspicuously unmentioned, Judaism misrepresented, looking for an opening, men and women vs feminist abstractions, mutual forgiveness, non-threatening body language, not rising to the bait, political dream, politics of religion, pre-feminist interactions, real-life advice for women, real-life lessons, Saint Ambrose, Saint Ambrose and Jews, Saint Augustine, Saint Augustine and Jews, side-stepping ideological posturing, significant dream, situation handled, situation to be handled, situational choreography, social death, social erasure, social intelligence, Socratic dialectic and the academy, Socratic dialectic and women, staying in the game, the choreography of social power, the dance of professional relations, the dance of social relations, the Righteous Gentiles, theological omissions, theology conference, theology lecture and questions, truth-seeking in the academy, unhelpful ideology, Western religion’s Jewish foundation, World War II newsreels
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The Color of the Sky
We were in California this past week where from time to time Jerry and I go for neuropathy treatments for me that actually help. Since October 7, the color of the sky has changed for me, so I was glad … 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, 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, 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, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, 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, 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 angel of retribution, anti-semitism, art of dying, atonement in Judaism, authenticity and inauthenticity, bragging SS men, breaking the human bond, chaos and creation, Christian forgiveness vs Jewish forgiveness, clean conscience, concentration camp memoir, contrite SS man, cost to the victim, death bed confession, death bed remorse, death camp experience, demagogues, evil and moral intelligibility, failure of human solidarity, finding one’s path, finding one’s vocation, German Romanticism, group identity vs individual responsibility, groupthink, guilt or innocence, human reality made symbolic, identifying one’s calling, irreparable harm, justice and mercy, law of moral experience, lessons from harmful deeds, mercy vs justice, mob psychology, moral accountability, moral candor, moral precariousness, mother-son relation, not asking for it, Nuremberg Tribunal, October 7 2023, one-pointed, persons treated as symbols, pseudoscience, Reincarnation and moral repair, Reincarnation and repentance, repairing human harm, repairing the human bond, repentance and forgiveness, restoring intelligibility out of chaos, retribution, seductive demagogues, shielding one’s self from suffering, Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, single-minded soul, smug obliviousness, SS man’s regrets, SS Veterans, suffering and moral intelligibility, suffering caused by evil, suffering unacknowledged, sympathy refused, the Divine Presence, the good death, the human community, the impact of cruelty, the problem of evil, the Shekinah, the voice of history, the voice of one’s time, theology and moral accountability, treating Jews as symbolic, unforgivable crimes, unremorseful SS men, victimizing normal people, voice of a generation, war crimes, Why does God permit suffering?, Wiesenthal and the dying SS man, Wiesenthal as Nazi hunter, Wiesenthal treated as representative
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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 Romance of Life
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
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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
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Why Choose the Jews?
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
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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
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Understanding Evil
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
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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
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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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Getting a Grip
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 →
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, 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, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, 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 Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", alone in a crowd, anguish, anti-semitism, Authenticity, author and critics, bad art, book as its own last word, California, changing what you can, choreographing a life, deciphering anguish, directionlessness, divine assignments and handicaps, divine clues, explaining one's book, fashionable despair, feeling disconnected, feeling rootless, feeling ungrounded, futility, Heidegger's uncanny, honest prayer, learning from horses, life seeming pointless, living with a handicap, loss of direction, loss of grip, loss of motivation, loss of purpose, manipulativeness, Martin Heidegger, mediation methods, meditation insights, mental standstill, messages from nature, neuropathy, neuropathy treatments, nobody understands me, overcontrolling, philosophy of human existence, psychological crisis, quieting the mind, styles of life, sympathizing with one's body, taking the body seriously, the future as predictable, the future as surprising, the future as unpredictable, the weight of the world, unheimlich, unwarranted despair, unwelcome freedom, what's wrong is that nothing is wrong, worry about the world
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How to Live One’s Story
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
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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
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