Tag Archives: collegial friend

Athens versus Jerusalem?

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Abigail

I am trying to cope with a feeling of personal fragility that has not been a concern in my life – up till now! Fragility can of course be culture-wide as well as person-sized. G. W. F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of … 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 Archeology, 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, 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, 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 academic conformity, academic grudges, academic non resentment, academic non-conformity, academic reprisal, academic search for truth, academic tenure fight, academics celebrating Oct 8, accusing a predator, American students endorsing Jihad, assumptions shattered, Athens, Athens against Jerusalem, Athens and Jerusalem, battling cancer alone, bearing witness to civilizational norms, bearing witness to moral norms, believing false allegations, blaming the whistleblower, cancer treatment protocols, cancer treatments conventional and unconventional, challenging the establishment, civilizational foundations, collegial friend, collegial friend and calumny, combats you can’t dodge, cultural anomalies, cultural assumptions, cultural assumptions refuted, cultural conformity and rebellion, cultural foundational beliefs, emotional integration, false accuser, false allegations, family friends, fights with your name on it, foundational beliefs, Harvard Divinity School condemns Israeli victims, Harvard Divinity School endorses Jihad, Hegel’s Phenomenology, holistic methods, holistic treatment for cancer, holistic vs conventional treatments, house that Plato built, identifying with Jihadists, inherited friends, Jerusalem as life in God’s presence, Jerusalem as life that God divinely witnessed, life-testing combats, losing friends, moral integration, Neither Athens nor Jerusalem, not holding a grudge, Oct 7 2023, Oct 8 2023, one combat too many, one fight too many, ousting a predator, overturning the establishment, personal and cultural assumptions, personal and cultural shared assumptions, personal assumptions refuted, personal belief foundations, personal foundational beliefs, personal fragility, psychic fragility, punishing the resister, rebels and conformists, rebels similarity with conformists, shared assumptions of conformists and rebels, Shell Shocked, social reprisal vs non-conformism, spiritual integration, treatment protocols, vulnerability of a culture, Western sympathy with Jihad | 2 Comments

Is the Just Woman Happier?

Posted on August 27, 2024 by Abigail

Is the Just Woman Happier? Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, 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, 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, Industrial Revolution, 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, 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, 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 life worth living, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", Abigail L. Rosenthal's "God and the Care for One's Story", academic combat, academic due process, academic reinstatement, accurate empathy, Aristotle's Metaphysics, asking God for help, broken relationships, carcinoginic social circumstance, classroom discipline, collegial friend, collegial normality, consequential choice, consequential vote, covert aggressor, denying the Rashomon Effect, dimming one's moral lights, disloyalty in friendship, empathy, empathy experiment, empathy with enemies, everyday heroism, evil and personal control, evil sees its opportunity, existential questions, faculty union, false compassion, false friends, fight to the finish, forced option, fork in life's road, friend's betrayal, friends who believe defamation, God's silence, good friends in hard times, gossip as a weapon, human desire to know, inner life of former friends, inner life of friends, irreparable breakup, Is the Just man happier? Is the Just woman happier?, job fight, knowing other minds, knowing other minds as parent, knowing other minds as teacher, knowing the mind of another, liberal guilt, life and death struggle, lost friendships, mind body connection, misperceiving the true colors, moral choice, moral cowardice, moral integrity, moral manipulation, moving on to survive, obligation to survive, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Philosophy Department, physical and mental health, Plato's Republic, playing the victim, politics of experience, power of the weak, prayer and meditation, praying for help, pretended misunderstanding, psyching out one's enemies, repaired social wounds, resisting a controller, resisting a manipulator, resisting an aggressor, resisting betrayal, resisting defamation, risking one’s job, seeing the true colors, social cowardice, social dominance, social survival, solitary struggle, solitude as moral struggle's precondition, standing by a friend, staying in the fight, survival instinct, testing situations, the other minds problem, the Rashomon excuse, the right way vs the easy way, the road less traveled, thought experiment, thought-waves of the mind, unhealthy circumstances, unrepaired wounds, veiled perception, victimhood misused, voting one's conscience, words as a weapon | Leave a comment

Why I Failed to Notice that I’m Happy

Posted on June 8, 2021 by Abigail

Why I Failed to Notice that I’m Happy Lately, I’ve been passing through what a friend called “a perfect storm” of setbacks. When they mount to a certain number, you can’t tell what’s big and what’s little. Anyway, they came … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, bigotry, childhood, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, ideality, identity, Jews, journalism, Judaism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, martyrdom, masculinity, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, psychology, public facade, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, secular, 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, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "Carolina Blue", anti-Israel bias, cheering up friends, collegial friend, computer angst, country music, dental crisis, female friendship, fractured toe, friendship and politics, gift cards, gratitude, greeting cards, health scare, information transfer, injury and exercise, instructive fables, Jews on the Brain, life blessings, life's precariousness, loving life, Luke Combs's "What You See Is What You Get", midrashic story, natural poetry, neuropathy treatments, outpatient surgery, perfect storm, poitics of friendship, setbacks, small fracture, song lyrics, sturdy soul | 4 Comments

My Therapist is a Horse

Posted on November 12, 2019 by Abigail

My Therapist is a Horse By that I don’t mean that it’s healthy for me to relax and do something different, rather than “think” all the time. I mean Cali [aka California], a tall pinto, is my therapist. Last Friday, … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, beauty, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, nineteenth-century, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, roles, romance, 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, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 19th century novels, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", academic feminism, academic job struggle, academic prestige, author’s platform, “About Abigail Rosenthal” video, “Autumn Leaves”, background music, blaming Holocaust victims, book genre, Brooklyn College Philosophy Department, Charles de Gaulle, Charles Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre", collegial friend, Columbia philosophy department, Columbia Religion Department, communication, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, Coulda been a contender, CUNY, Currer and Acton Bell, equine therapist, Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Fidelista, French philosopher, Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, horse sense, horse tracks, Houyhnhnms, human therapist, Israeli ambassador, Jane Austen, Laurel Nobilis stables, Les feuilles mortes, life strategy, love of wisdom, male pseudonyms, manuscript design, mass executions, multi-tasking, natural riding, opinion shapers, opportunism, overthinking, philosophy of language, philosophy students, podcast, preamble and outgo, public space, purposive action, R&R, reaching readers, receptive silence, relaxation, remembering where you’re headed, rest and recuperation, seeking readers, staying invisible, success as a full-time job, success tradeoffs, Susan Sontag, the Bronte Sisters, therapist, truth-seeking, whitewashing Nazis, women writers, words and images | Leave a comment

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