Tag Archives: beyond good and evil

I Stopped Trying to Get Above It

Posted on November 11, 2025 by Abigail

Reading Jeff Kripal’s Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom brought the topic of mysticism to the front of my mind. At earlier junctures of my life journey, mysticism had clearly been a concern. It seemed to offer a way out … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, 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, Desire and Authenticity, 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, 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, power games, 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, 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, Uncategorized, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Advaita Vedanta, beautiful guru, beyond good and evil, Blaise Pascal, cancer and life experience, cults and corruption, dangers of a spiritual quest, dilemmas and double binds, Eastern mystics, eros and merging with God, eros and mysticism, escapism, Evelyn Underhill, Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism, experiential impasses, finding one’s life path, getting above it, guru who falls, gurus and exploitation, historians of mysticism, impasses, insoluble experience and cancer, knowing how to think, knowing what to do, knowing what to say, Kripal’s Roads of Excess Palaces of Wisdom, life in history, life journey, life on the timeline, life’s impasses and cancer, merging with the Divine, mind control and brainwashing, mystical journeys, mystical merging, mysticism and authenticity, mysticism and autonomy, mysticism and celibacy, mysticism and conformism, mysticism and human goals, mysticism and seduction, mysticism and sex, mysticism and the erotic, mysticism as academic topic, mysticism as escapism, mysticism studies, mystics in Asia, mystics in Christianity, Pascal as mystic, Realized Master, spiritual exploration and brainwashing, spiritual exploration and mind control, spiritual quest, spiritual quest and risk, theism and pantheism, transcendence, transcendence as escapism, woman guru | 2 Comments

The Fork in the Road

Posted on August 5, 2025 by Abigail

* * * A realization visited me the other day. It had to do with lost friendships. I’d always pictured these losses as mere phenomena lying on the surface of life. In the depth, in the end – in 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, 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, eighteenth century, 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, motherhood, 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, 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 | Tagged A Good Look at Evil by Abigail L Rosenthal, afterlife reunions, believing in oneself, betraying a friend, beyond good and evil, binding commitments, breakup differently explained, broken friendship, café regular, change of heart, changing philosophic commitments, character as destiny, choice with life implications, comfortable in one’s skin, consequential choices, credible defamation, death of friendship, deciphering life events, decisive choice, decoding life events, deep friendship, defamatory gossip, demoralizing the culture, drawing a moral line, erotic exploitation, Europeans and cafés, evil and reality, evil as philosophic concept, female athleticism, fork in the road, friendly opposites, friends and misunderstandings, friendship and trust, friendship destroyed, friendship through differences, friendships’ importance, hip, hipster, irreversible life-choice, journal for self-discovery, life choices, life energy misspent, losing life-force, losing one’s athleticism, loss of grace, lost friendship, lost self-command, lost vitality, lost zest for life, manipulative social relations, misunderstanding between friends, moral categories and reality, Nordic woman, persona as binding the future, philosophers and life strategy, philosophers and personal choice, philosophers and the outdoors, philosophic friendship, philosophy and life wisdom, reality as amoral, reality of evil, Reign of Terror, self-renewal in nature, sexual exploitation, sexual politics, sharing life’s lessons, social enemy, social life in cafés, social manipulation, solitude among café regulars, solitude in nature, superficial friendship, the real and the rational, the real is not the rational, two sides to the story, understanding evil, unshared memories, wearing shorts with authority, women philosophers, writing in cafés, zest for life | Leave a comment

What Is Truth?

Posted on July 2, 2024 by Abigail

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 | 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 | 3 Comments

Women’s Knockout Fights

Posted on March 12, 2024 by Abigail

In Les Liaisons dangereuses, the 18th-century French novel of cynicism by Choderlos De Laclos, the seductress goads her partner in erotic predation to break off his affair with the lady whose virtue had been surrendered to him. His break is … 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, 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, 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, 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, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, 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, 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, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 18th century novels, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", academic friendships, academic women, battle for public opinion, believing evil gossip, betrayed friendships, beyond good and evil, bottom rung of the social ladder, breaking implicit social rules, charisma and breaking social rules, competition between women, dance of seduction, defamation seen as power, defamatory gossip, defenseless femininity, disarmed women, enjoying friend’s differences, enjoying one another's differences, erotic competition, ethical glory, ethical judgment, feminine prestige, fight for prestige, French novels, friendships with colleagues, gossip as power play, hidden intrigue, intelligent malice, Les Liaisons dangereuses by Choderlos De Laclos, Les Tricoteuses, life on a moral foundation, living one’s philosophy, losing trust, malicious conspiracy, manipulation of victim status, metaphysical relations, metaphysics, moral discernment, novels of cynicism, opposites attract, painful reminiscence, parental circle of friends, parental death and power changes, people of moral authority, philosophical friendship, playing the victim, power dynamic and parental death, prestige and women, pretended victimhood, pretending to be the victim, seducer, seductive conspiracy, seductress, slander is always believed, social aggressiveness, social conspiracy, social disagreements over underlying values, social fall, social ladder, social rule breaking for personal advantage, social shunning, social trust, social warfare, the cat’s away the mice will play, the knitting women, the politics of gossip, Viking, Viking ancestry, when friendship ends, woman friend, woman who knows where to strike at another woman, women and social power, women as subtle, women as subtle fighters, women know women’s vulnerability, women's rivalry, women’s knockout fights | Leave a comment

Boys, Girls, and Metaphysical Monism

Posted on June 6, 2023 by Abigail

By “metaphysical monism” I mean the view that every kind of variety and difference in the world is ultimately unreal. So what’s real? The One. In reality, the many things we experience are One Thing or – more precisely – … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, books, chivalry, 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, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, id, Idealism-, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romantic love, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, 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 | Tagged above the battle, achieving samadhi, Achilles and the Hare, appearance and reality, ashram attractions, bad guys shouldn’t win, beyond good and evil, change as delusive, clever enemies, corruption in ashrams, credible defamations, damaging fictions, delusion of difference, difference as unreal, fall of the guru, feminine power, feminine vulnerability, finding refuge in a different culture, Gnosticism, Gnosticism in Western culture, human condition as fallen, idealization of women, malicious gossip, metaphysical idealism, metaphysical monism, metaphysical monism and human rights, new age and brainwashing, ordinary common sense, Parmenides, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, personal defeat of the guru, realized masters, refuge in ashram, spiritual dangers, stopping bad guys, the one as sole reality, women's vulnerability, yoga and abuse of power, yoga and ethical abuses, yoga and human rights, yoga and sex asymmetries, yoga and the guru, yoga as protection, yoga for health, yoga sex differences, yoga siddhis, Zeno, Zeno’s paradoxes | Leave a comment

The Moral Markers

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Abigail

The Moral Markers From time to time, I pause to picture how the recent phases of my life would look to me if there were no God in the pictures. It’s a sort of thought experiment. Philosophers are given to … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, action, alienation, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, books, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, journalism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, masculinity, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, nineteenth-century, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged abstraction, absurdity, agnostic, Atheism, atheistic world view, Authenticity, beyond good and evil, brute forces, complementarity in friendship, concrete experience, consequential decisions, constructive orientation, controlled experiment, cynicism, deleted datum, erasing evidence, experimental confirmation, experimental disconfirmation, false consciousness, fashionable abstractions, fashionable views, feigned belief, fork in the road, Friedrich Nietzsche, integrating experience, limited palette, loyalty v betrayal, Martin Heidegger, meaning of life, meaningful life, models of the ultimate, modern life, Modernity, moral choice, moral fork in the road, moral indices, moral markers, moral neutrality, no rhyme or reason, novelistic plotline, objectivity claims, opinion shapers, opposites attract, pointlessness, power relations, projection, random energy, reality as absurd, relationship dynamics, Social Darwinism, social pretense, survival of the fittest, Swedish descent, the Modern world, the Post-Modern world, theism, theistic world view, thought experiment, Valhalla, Vedantist, Viking worldview | Leave a comment

“Loyalty”

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Abigail

“Loyalty” For a good many years I had a close woman friend. She was also a colleague, thus for me among the most cherished of life’s treasures. We were very different types, almost polar opposites in our ways of responding … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, friendship, Hegel, history of ideas, literature, philosophy, political, relationships, the examined life, the problematic of woman | Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal, beyond good and evil, choices, classical world, dragon ships, fork in the road, friendship, good and evil, Leo Bronstein, Loyalty, multiculturalism, Nietzsche, Nordic, origins, philosophy, purity, Success, Viking, women relationships | 1 Comment

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“Loyalty”

Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column

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