Category Archives: social climbing
Jesus
I never tried to arrive at settled convictions about Jesus of Nazareth. Being Jewish, I saw no need to do that, except for holding a few broad-stroke opinions about certain views associated with Christianity. For example, take the belief that … 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, childhood, 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, 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, medieval, 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, 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
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Tagged "woman" not a social construct, 2000 year theology of contempt, Abel’s sacrifice accepted, anti-Jewish redactor of Matthew 27:25, anti-Jewish redactors of New Testament, anti-semitism and culture’s Ultimate, anti-semitism as cultural fashion, anti-semitism post October 7, asymmetrical erotic relations, asymmetrical personal relations, Cain and Abel, Cain’s sacrifice not accepted, campus anti-semitism, Chrisitian theology of contempt, christian doctrines, Christian self assessment as loving, Christian theology, Christian-Jewish friendships, crucifixion and Original Sin, cultural health, cultural pathology, culture and it’s Absolute, culture’s sense of meaning of life, culture’s Ultimate, Eden expulsion as analysis of human condition, fraternal rivalry, fratricide, Hegel’s cultural diagnostic, Hegelian questions, hillbilly gospel, historical Jesus, history and moral responsibility, interfaith discussions, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Jew, Jesus vs Chrisitian anti-semitism, Jewish doctrines, Jewish view of good and evil, Jewish view of the Fall, Jewish view of the Garden of Eden, Jewish view of the Tree of Knowledge, Jewish views of Jesus, Jewish views of Original Sin, Jewish/Christian competition, let sleeping dogs lie, longest hatred, mindless groupthink, mission of Jesus, moral responsibility in Genesis, New Testament redactors, New Testament scholarship, nonsectarian surface and religious depth, October 7, original sin, Original Sin not a Jewish doctrine, Paul and Original Sin, Pauline claims and Judaism, phenomenon of anti-semitism, politics of early Christianity, politics of religion, Pontius Pilate, recent New Testament scholarship, religious depths of nonsectarian opinion, sacred and profane in culture, sources of recent anti-semitism, the Garden of Eden and the human condition, the human condition in Biblical stories, the record of Christianity and Judaism, theological disputes, theology of anti-semitism, two sons of Adam and Eve, understanding a culture through its view of the Absolute, What is sacred in a culture?, what Jesus believed, William Nicholls’ Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate
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Passionate Intensity
In 1919, William Butler Yeats wrote a poem with two lines that came to seem more timely as the century wore on: The best lack all conviction, while The worst are full of passionate intensity. Within little more than a … 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, 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, fatherhood, 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, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, 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
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Tagged American Revolution, anger on the right, approval on the left, atrocity envy, authoritarian shortcuts, being woke, Ben Franklin’s warning, best lack all conviction, binary as accusation, Brooklyn College of CUNY, Brooklyn Connections, can’t take a joke, cancel culture, conformism, crowd pathology, culture of suspicion, defeatism, defending democratic norms, defending human rights, defending liberal arts, defending the oppressed, democracy vs mob rule, denouncers denounced, dream as an argument, dream illustration, dream of Metropolitan Museum, dream providing an argument, eligibility for cancellation, enemy of the people, Enlightenment, feckless faculty, fighting the good fight, getting canceled, going along to get along, good intentions, having a prayer, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind, heteronormative as accusation, human rights as self-evident, I have a dream, left mirroring right, left/right mirror images, liberal arts curriculum, living on your inheritance, losing by failing to fight, marginalized, nazi erasure of rights, objectively guilty, opposing oppressors, oppressed as social rank, oppression as status, oppression without status, oppressor/oppressed relation, parental authority, parental responsibilities, parents and children, political conformity, political intolerance, political shunning, politically downranked, politics as humorless, professor of philosophy, progressivism, qualifying as oppressed, racism as accusation, Reign of Terror, rights bearing citizenship, rights not self-perpetuating, rise of fascism, romance and political courage, saving Brooklyn College, school teachers’ authority, sexism as accusation, social murder, status on the left, story of victory, the Guillotine, transphobia as accusation, unrecognized oppression, William Butler Yeats, worst have passionate intensity, Yeats’ The Second Coming, you don’t lose them all, you don’t win them all
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Interesting Times
There is a well-known curse, supposedly Chinese, that goes: May you live in interesting times! In my childhood I lived in a New York City that snowed in winter. We schoolkids built snowmen and went sledding in the park. Life … 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, childhood, 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, 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, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, 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, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, 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
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Tagged academic bureaucracy, American philosopher, anti-semitism and loss of cultural self-respect, anti-semitism as replacement for personal defeat, anti-semitism in England, anti-semitism in higher education, anti-Zionism and Western cultural demoralization, anti-Zionism as loss of cultural self-defense, antigenocide turned on its head, Battle of Trafalgar, Bernard Harrison's Blaming the Jews, Big City childhood, British nineteenth-century cultural flourishing, building snowmen, Chautauqua movement, Chinese proverb, civilizational cycles, dark romanticism, demoralized generation, edifying educational retreat, English philosopher, going along to get along, Hebrew Bible as Jewish memory, Hitler’s anti-Judaism, Hitler’s genocide, Hitler’s racial classifications, ideal world vs real world, interesting times, Israel's 1948 Declaration of Independence, Israel’s will to survive, Jews as remembering their history, Jews not a race, Jews recording their history, Jews seen as a race, memory gap, moral balance, New York City childhood, overt vs implied anti-semitism, philosophic colleague, predictability of anti-semitism, safe and solid childhood, seeing what you expect, sledding in the park, suppressing chronological memory, the English defeat Napoleon, the makings of an anti-semite, too much of a good thing, transatlantic conversation, UN anti-zionism, uplifting vacation, wholesome group activities, wholesome uplift vs wicked world, William James, William James’ What Makes a Life Significant?, World War I demoralizes England, World War II and British cultural exhaustion
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The Stroke of Lightning
One time I asked the Swiss-French philosopher Jeanne Hersch what she thought the French model for romantic love was. Her response was instant: C’est Tristan. That twelfth-century tale, which exists in many versions, goes like this: Tristan, a Cornish knight, … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, 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, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, 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, 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, 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, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, public facade, public intellectual, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic attitudes, blinded by love, bracketing personal involvement, bracketing the natural attitude, cynicism as pretense, dance of the lovers, Dante Alighieri, Dante and Beatrice, Dante's romantic love, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Edmund Husserl, encoded Gnostic stories, explaining away romance, falling in love, falling in love unawares, feminism as anti-romantic, fitting romantic love into categories, French choreography of romance, French culture and the coup de foudre, French model of romantic love, gender imbalance, good life as a balance between extremes, honoring womanly hopes, independent woman, insincere hopelessness, Jeanne Hersch, lawbreaking for the sake of a better world, le coup de foudre, libertine Gnosticism, lovers in Paris, medieval romance, modern woman, nihilism as pretense, nonviolent resistance, noticing the romantic spark, objective self-examination, objective self-knowledge, ontology of romantic love, outliving one's love, outliving romantic love, personal histories, Phenomenology, pretended maturity, professional woman, reductive explanations for romantic love, resistance and non-resistance, romance and self protection, romance as novelistic, romance tales as encoded Gnostic tracts, romantic approach of French vs. American women, Romantic Love, romantic love and psychology, romantic love and the experts, romantic love and theoretical explanations, romantic love as a law onto itself, romantic love as sanity in depth, romantic love as temporary, romantic love treated as abnormal, romantic love treated as madness, romantic love vs. seduction, saving the liberal arts, studying romance, taking romantic love seriously, the strategy of being a woman, the stroke of lightning, the Tristan template, the world has no room for romance, Tristan and Iseult, true love, trusting romantic love, Upper East Side, well-balanced life, woman philosopher
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Bless Me Also Father
In my grandfather’s Manhattan apartment overlooking Riverside Drive, the family would collect for the annual Passover celebration. Round the table were his sons and their wives, his younger daughter, my mother, along with my father, my sister and me. His … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, 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, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, 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, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, 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, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic bureaucracy, anti-semitism as sibling rivalry, asking the four questions, beginning of history, book of Genesis, Christian view of history, crucifixion redeems Original Sin, family gathering, favorite child, fight for the blessing, finger of God, first sibling rivalry, fratricide, Garden of Eden, God’s favorite, Grandfather’s blessing, history differently read by Christians and Jews, How Christians set the stage for history, How Jews set the stage for history, Jacob and Esau, Jewish view of history, Jewish vs Christian differences, Jewish vs Christian expulsion from Eden, Jewish vs Christian theology, Judaism vs Christianity Re Original Sin, looking like God, matzah, mock bargaining at Passover, native born Israeli, original sin, paintings of God, Passover celebration, performative predictions, Rav Tsair, recent anti-semitism, Sabra, sabra cousin, same Biblical stories differently read, sibling rivalry in the Bible, Sistine chapel, stealing the blessing, what Abel knew that Cain did not, why Cain killed Abel
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What Is Truth?
The question, famously put to Jesus by Pontius Pilate, was prompted by Jesus’ self-report that he had come to bear witness to the truth. Without capitalizing “Truth,” so that it acquires other-worldly sound-and-light effects – isn’t bearing witness to the … 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, book reviews, books, childhood, 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, 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, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, 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, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romantic love, 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, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, 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, acculturation and maturation, aesthetic theory, bearing witness, beyond good and evil, celebration of the novel, characters in novels, children’s adaptation to grownups, continental know-it-all, cultural history, culture and meaning, culture as influence on purpose, despair as affectation, destroying the culture, discerning life purpose, discerning one’s purpose, evil defined, evildoers and innocent purposes, evildoers attacking ordinary purpose, fashionable despair, feminine self-respect, fiction and nonfiction, good and evil, Guido Mazzoni’s Theory of the Novel, initial purposes, intellectual influence, Jesus, ladies don’t believe this creep, libertine Gnosticism, life as a journey, life as a pilgrimage, life as a quest, literary criticism, literary history, mapping and purpose, moral anomie, moral flatness, mutual influence in society, nineteenth-century novels, novelistic life stories, novels and real-life, Pontius Pilate, preferred purposes, pretense of amorality, revising purposes, seducer’s line, seducing the reader, self-definition, self-discovery, self-education, self-respect, stories true and false, story as putting purpose to the test, storylines, subjectivity mischaracterized, technique of seduction, testing purposes, the nature of evil, the novel, trials and errors, true stories, truth and falsehood, truth and postmodernism, truth vs fiction, undermining the culture, What is truth?, what you see is what you get
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Micro-Metaphysics
Related Content: What Do Women Want? | My Journey Within | What a Woman Needs is Philosophy | Call No Woman Happy | The Other Culture War | As Philosophy Goes …
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, 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, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, 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, 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, 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, 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 Adam and Eve, Aristotle's Metaphysics, astrophysics, beyond physics, Big Answers, boundaries of ordinary life, boundaries of sensibility, cafe conversation, cause of causes, causes and freedom, conversational map, conversational tact, cosmogony, current feminist theories, deciphering women, decoding men, desire to know, desires forfeited, determinism and free will, ejsy ep, evil and women, facts and values, feminist abstractions, feminist politics, figuring out women and men, friends’ undiscussed topics, knowing what we need to know, life-terrain, logos of the cosmos, mapping the personal world, mapping women’s landscapes, men’s fears regrets hopes, meta ta physika, metaphysics of daily life, micro-metaphysics, mind and matter, new scientific frontier, personal landmarks, personal world, secret springs of action, secrets of daily life, sources of morality, tactful silence, The Big Bang, the big picture, the Little Picture, the real story, ultimate explanation, what women don't say, what women don’t disclose, women and men, women friends, women's conversational disclosures, women’s fears regrets hopes, women’s reunions, women’s undiscussed topics, World of Desire, zones of silence
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A Writer’s Conscience
I just finished reading – actually skimming – what I’m tempted to name as the worst book in the history of the world. It’s a romance novel titled Forever Amber, set in seventeenth century England, which came out originally in … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, bigotry, book reviews, books, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, 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, journalism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged a Protestant sensibility, a writer's double-vision, a writer’s motives, a writer’s self-condemnation, ancients vs moderns, banned books, Barbara Taylor Bradford, bodice busters, denounced books, editing one’s experience, experience and authenticity, experience as grist for the writer’s mill, experience as the first draft, experience giving self-knowledge, fact/value coexistence, fact/value split, facts and values, female vulnerability, fiction and real life, fiction’s influence, filtered experience, heroine without conscience, historical fiction, historical panorama, honoring human experience, immoral heroine, Joan Didion’s On Keeping a Notebook, Joan Didion’s Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Kathleen Winsor’s Forever Amber, life without conscience, living as the first draft, living at second hand, modernity’s fact/value split, moral choice, novelist, predicaments of Restoration England, raw experience and interpreted experience, reign of Charles II, Restoration England, romance novels, self-awareness and ego, self-knowledge, seventeenth century England, social ambition, social panorama, society from bottom to top, the cost of being a writer, the cost of living one’s talent, the Great Plague of 1665, the writer’s vocation, time travel, time travel through fiction, time travel through novels, unedited life, values and the writer’s vocation, war of the sexes, writer’s conscience, writers and ego, writers using experience as material
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Father and Daughter
Having recently read the memoir of Hannah Tillich, largely concerned with her marriage to Paul Tillich, renowned theologian – with close-up views of how he pursued his own erotic opportunities at the cost of their marital romance – one upshot was … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, appreciation, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, 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, 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, nineteenth-century, novels, ontology, oppression, 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, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, 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, Utopia, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, afterlife approval, Altizer meets Henry Rosenthal, concealed genius, coping with cancer, creative originality, daughter’s duties, death scene, duty vs self-interest, editing posthumous book, erotic opportunism, family lawyer, famous men you wouldn’t marry, father-daughter collaboration, father-daughter philosophic collaboration, father’s legacy, fathers and daughters, fighting cancer, filial piety, final farewells, flaws of great men, Hannah Tillich, Hannah Tillich’s From Time to Time, Hannah Tillich’s memoir, Henry M. Rosenthal’s The Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes’s Secret; Spinoza’s Way, hidden insights, history as biography, intuitive vs discursive insight, Job’s comforters, last words, literature on Hobbes, literature on Spinoza, living authentically, living one’s philosophy, New York Public Library, one-of-a-kind thinker, ontology of a seducer, parental authenticity, parenting sincerely, Paul Tillich, permissions to publish, philosopher’s daughter, philosophers and family, philosophic literature, philosophy and real life, philosophy family, posthumous book, posthumous responsibilities, publishing posthumous book, radiation for breast cancer, recognized scholars, renowned theologian, responsibilities for posthumous book, sexual opportunist, style of self-concealment, The American Jewish Historical Society, Thomas Altizer, Tillich’s contradictions, Tillich’s Ground of Being, Tillich’s The Courage to Be, uncategorizable genius, vision in solitude
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The Theologian’s Wife
At the time I was at Columbia University, as a graduate student in philosophy as well as an Assistant in the Religion Department, Paul Tillich – a theologian of world stature in the twentieth century – was just a few … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, 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, ethnicity, 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, 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, ontology, oppression, 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, 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, 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, Columbia Religion Department, Columbia University, commitments betrayed, communists and nazis, connecting the dots, deathbed farewell, denial of evil, emancipation as the excuse, escaping when Hitler takes power, female powerlessness, German politics, Germany between the wars, getting a look at Hitler, God of history, great man’s wife, great men who exploit women, great thinkers who betray women, Hannah Tillich, Hannah Tillich’s From Time to Time, Hannah Tillich’s memoir, Hitler rally, Hitler’s spell, honor under fire, impersonal God vs personal God, keeping one’s honor, lifelong friendship, long suffering wives, love at first sight, love surviving disappointment, love triangle, loving but not trusting, marital infidelity, marriage as lifelong voyage, meditation as emotional shelter, meeting great men, nazi’s uncanny speed, Nietzsche, open marriage, open relationship, Paul Tillich, Paul Tillich’s marriage, Paul Tillich’s widow, perceiving evil, personal betrayal, personal virtue, post-war Germany, recognizing evil, rekindled friendship, repressed jealousy, scorning bourgeois values, spiritual discernment, spoiling true love, the disappointed woman behind the great man, theologians and nazism, theological problems, theology professorships, Tillich in America, Tillich’s Biblical Faith, Tillich’s Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, Tillich’s Ground of Being, Tillich’s personal God, Tillich’s Ultimacy, ultimacy, Union Theological Seminary, victimization in marriage, virtue under pressure, weathering the storms of marriage, world class theologian, yoga and emotional shelter, yoga and meditation
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