Tag Archives: academic attitudes

What I Learned When I Almost Died

A funny thing happened when Jerry and I were about to give talks to a group at the Princeton School of Theology. On our way to another building, where the meeting was to be held, I stepped forward on what … Continue reading

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, appreciation, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, freedom, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, identity, institutional power, journalism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, martyrdom, master/slave relation, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, oppression, past and future, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, psychology, public facade, reductionism, relationships, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, self-deception, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, 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, time, Truth, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment