Tag Archives: American Political Science Association

History’s Spiritual Side

Posted on September 10, 2024 by Abigail

Over the past few days, Jerry and I have been attending and speaking at the Eric Voegelin Society meetings in Philadelphia. Though the EVS is nested academically within the American Political Science Association, it’s a political science organization with 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, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's The Evil of This Time, academic credibility, academic fair-mindedness, academic honesty, academics and Hitler, academics who are sincere, American Political Science Association, American political virtues, Austrian anti-semitism, Austrian Catholic illiberalism, authoritarian Catholic illiberalism, Bruno Godefroy, collapse of the norms, defeats explained away, delusional systems, Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, distinguished war criminals, endorsing war crimes, Enlightenment, Eric Voegelin, Eric Voegelin and authoritarian regime, Eric Voegelin Society, EVS in Philadelphia, extremist ideologies, French Revolution, Gnosticism vs Reality, Gnosticism's seductive appeal, Gnostics can't fail, guillotine victims, Hamas pride in atrocities, Harvard collective letter re Oct 7, incorrigible delusions, intellectual courage, intellectual scandal, justifying atrocities of Oct 7, love of truth, masks of detachment, metaxy between Gnosticism and Nihilism, Nazi Austria, Nazi takeover of Austria, Nazism and communism, nice people rejecting the norms, Oct 7 2023, open minded research, political escapism, political science, professors and Hitler, rationality without rationalizing, reality as hard to understand, Religion and Public Life in Harvard Divinity School, safe from refutation, secret knowledge, spirituality in politics, spirituality mishandled, Sydney Carton's last thoughts, the God hypothesis, the suspended middle between Gnosticism and Nihilism, transhuman purity, truth as religion enough, understanding reality, unrepentant atrocity perpetrators, Voegelin and American political virtues, Voegelin and anti-semitism, Voegelin and the metaxy, World War II refugee | 1 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 →

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, childhood, 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, 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, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, 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, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged academic combat, academic etiquette of atheism, academic honor, academic hygiene, academic meetings, American Political Science Association, anti-nazi thinker, APSA, Bible as life in history, Biblical self criticism, Biblical supersessionism, biblical truth, Cain and Abel, cleaning up your act, covert anti-semitisim, Eric Voegelin, Eric Voegelin Society, Eric Voegelin's Israel and Revelation, Esau’s complaint, escaping the Gestapo, escapist transcendence, fairness in history, fight for the blessing, fight to be the favorite, George Foote Moore’s Judaism, God as Witness, gratitude in history, historical timeline, historicity of the Bible, human nature, human nature in history, in touch with feelings, Jacob and Esau, Jacob steals the blessing, Jews as history’s record keepers, justice and chronology, life on the timeline, linear history, linear timeline, neuropathy treatments, non-dogmatic spirituality, objectivity in history, philosophy of history, presenting academic papers, preserving minority opinions, preserving the divine image, preserving the human presence, rabbinic discussion, reading between the lines, repressed history, respecting minority opinions, seeking truth in history, sibling rivalry, spiritual factor in history, surviving the test of time, surviving to tell the story, The Longest Hatred, theory of history, truth-seekers, uncovering the subtext, under-served features of the human story | Leave a comment

Reluctant Inferences

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Abigail

This is the evening when I usually pen the weekly essay for “Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column.” Till I take pen in hand, I never know exactly what I’m going to write. Often, I don’t even know the topic! So … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, Christianity, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, fashion, female power, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, Idealism-, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, 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 academic presentations, Adolf Eichmann, American common sense, American intellectual openness, American Political Science Association, anti-Jewish insults, anti-semitism, APSA, Argentina, Bettina Stangneth's Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer, bigoted words, collegial friendships, contemporary nihilism, contemporary reductionism, contemporary skepticism and cynicism, contrived writing, covert subtext, creative inspiration, creative thinkers, creatively inspired writing, deliberate ambiguity, denouncing while justifying, denying a people's value, disguised insults, divine message, duty vs convenience, Eichmann's Argentine transcripts, erasing a people, Eric Voegelin, Eric Voegelin and Jews, Eric Voegelin Society, Eric Voegelin's Order and History, Eric Voegelin's Israel and Revelation, European intellectual systems, EVS, fashionable opinions, genocide, good neighbors, good vs evil, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, hidden message, Holocaust survivor, intellectual refinement, Jewish farmers, Jews and Judaism, know it all, losing friends, nazis in Roumania, philosophy of history, playing with evil, political science, pre-exilic post-exilic and post-Biblical Judaism, prejudicial language, pro-nazi informers, rationales for genocide, religion of Israel, Roumania, saying it and taking it back, significant coincidences, spirituality and history, strategically elusive, strategy of now you see it now you don't, stream of consciousness, theology of contempt, truthful writing, Voegelin escaping Gestapo, Voegelin targeted by nazis, Voegelin's anti-nazism, Voegelin's Vienna circle, words with consequences, world history, writing ambiguously, Yom ha Shoah | 3 Comments

As If We Were Free

Posted on September 20, 2022 by Abigail

As If We Were Free We are just back from the pleasant French city of Montreal in Canada, where Jerry and I gave papers and attended the presentations of others at the meetings of the Eric Voegelin Society, a group … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, bigotry, bureaucracy, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, journalism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master/slave relation, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, roles, romantic love, 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, 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 academic horror stories, American Political Science Association, anonymous denunciation, apocalyptic fantasies, behaving as if free, Canada, coerced confessions, Czech dissidents, denounced anonymously, denouncer and denouncee, Eric Voegelin, Eric Voegelin Society, escaping the human condition, escaping the Nazis, existential questions, hard to be human, ideological path, ideology-driven regimes, imprisonments, life assignment, loyalty to the party, mass executions and gulags, materialist cynicism, materialist reductionism, mock trials, Montreal, moral defeat, Nazism and communism, no one is safe, no-longer-sayable, one-man rule, ostracism, penumbra of fear, pointless sacrifice, police state, political philosophers, political theorists, professional risks, social defeat, social eviction, social risks, soul-destroying ideologies, struggles for freedom, the fellowship of truth tellers, totalizing programs, utopian delusions, Václav Havel, Venezuela and Cuba, where to draw the line | 1 Comment

Life Review in Seattle

Posted on October 5, 2021 by Abigail

Life Review in Seattle We were in Seattle for a meeting of the Eric Voegelin Society. It’s a group within the American Political Science Association, probably the only such group that considers spiritual factors in its efforts to understand history. … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art of living, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, chivalry, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, law, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, oppression, past and future, philosophy, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, sex appeal, 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, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged academic egos, American Political Science Association, avoiding cynicism, Bill Gates, centralized economy, climate apocalypse, corporate law, economic incentives, economic inequality, economic predicaments, economic solutions, Elon Musk, Eric Voegelin Society, extracting life benefit, financial instruments, financial liability, financial soundness, global finance, good times and bad, high thinking, holding on to friendship, ideology and terror, Isaac Newtown, Israeli socialist kibbutzim, keeping our friends, life review, life smarts, modern economies, moving to Mars, nondogmatic academics, nontransparency, old friends, optimal options, PayPal, planetary doom, planetary pollution, playing the cards you're dealt, ponzi schemes, Seattle, Seattle ethos, silicon man, SpaceX, Swedish modified socialism, techie delusions, techie ethos, techie genius, truth seeking, understanding history, unequal rewards, women's friendship | Leave a comment