Tag Archives: Emmanuel Levinas
What Kind of a Man?
I grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side (in the days before that got to be a swank neighborhood) and, aside from Mr. Z (our superintendent who turned out to be a Nazi spy), nobody – rich or poor or … Continue reading
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Tagged abnormal motives, anti-semitism as a syndrome, attacking the vulnerable, blaming the Jews, Catherine Chalier, chivalrous men, Christianity re human relations, conference on Levinas, conspiracy theorist, covert social insult, duties of a guest, eliding Levinas’ Jewish influence, Emmanuel Levinas, eros of life, evil unambiguous, French philosopher, handling social insult, Hannah Arendt and Eichmann, Hannah Arendt and Holocaust victims, Hitler unpopular in New York, Holocaust and philosophy, Holocaust survivor, honoring a guest, Jewish approach to human relations, Jewish identity, Levinas and assassination threats, Levinas and Jewish thought, Levinas and the human face, Levinas re the human face, Levinas’ disciple, living out one’s story, Manhattan's Upper East Side, manhood and courtesy to women, manliness and unmanliness, misremembering history, misremembering Hitler, moral clarity, moral clarity in World War II, moral clarity vs moral ambiguity, Nazi spy in Manhattan, nonresistance to evil, normality of friendship, Peterhouse in Cambridge U, pseudo questions, psychology of anti-semitism, resistance to evil, respecting the human face, reversing good and evil, secular human relations, self-realization, simplicity of evil, social reality, social reality before anti-semitism, socially problematic to be Jewish, Spoiling One’s Story: The Case of Hannah Arendt in Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, Sydney University’s Dept of Traditional and Modern Philosophy, the human norm, World War 2’s domestic front, World War II
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Anti-Semites I Have Known
Actually, I haven’t known that many. I’m talking about people who directed offensive remarks at me personally, related to my being Jewish, with intent to hurt. (As to the current variety, who sport masks, they came on scene after I’d … 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, 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, 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, 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 "God" and projection, aggression and social expectations, anti-Semites, anti-Semitic, Are you Jewish?, Catherine Chalier, Catholic priest, chivalric love, chivalry and human interaction, chivalry of human relations, Christian Jewish competition, Christian Supersessionism, clergy with doubts, conversation with friends, counter-erotic insults, covert insults, cultural competition, cultural erasure, Dante’s Divine Comedy, dinner with friends, dishonest ending, disrespecting chivalry, Emmanuel Levinas, ending a friendship, erotic erasure, erotic erasure of Jewish women, erotic erasure of Jews, erotic erasure of women, evading Jewish philosophy, ex-friends, feminism and social insults, French-Jewish philosopher, friendship and trust, from agnosticism to faith, handling a social conflict, hatred stopping dialogue, hopeless hatred, insulting the human face, Israel controversies, Israel-baiting, Jehudah and Benjamin, Jewish academics, Jewish sense of human reality, Jewish sense of reality, Jews and Jehudim, Judaism denied, Judaism erased, Levinas and the face, Levinas and the Jewish face, Levinas conference, Levinas Conference at Chicago, Levinas without his Judaism, loaded questions, loaded situation, men of the cloth, mistakenly trusted friend, murky evasions, non-Jewish conference on Levinas, offensive remarks, personalizing anti-Israel views, politics of religion, pretended piety, pretext for a quarrel, priesthood, priestly vocation, religious doubts, religious experience, religious rivalry, Russian Orthodox priest, sibling rivalry, sidestepping Jewish thought, social anti-semitism, social dilemma, social insults, social norms, social quarrel, social victimization, students with masks, ten lost tribes, the Jewish-Christian theological alternatives, triangular conflict entrapment, trusting the clergy, twelve tribes of Israel, victim's professional dilemma, victim's social dilemma, what friends expect, witness at wedding, woman in a quarrel between men
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Levinas, the Other, and Me
Levinas, the Other, and Me Some years ago, I went to a conference on Emmanuel Levinas at the University of Chicago. I had just discovered Levinas, found him a dramatically original and appealing philosopher, and went out there with no … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, American politics, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, bigotry, books, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, immorality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, love, male power, masculinity, memory, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, non-violence, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, secular, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, 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, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Catherine Chalier, curing hatred, dialogue v monologue, Emmanuel Levinas, erasing the face, French-Jewish philosopher, hatred, human reciprocity, human recognition, human relationship, ideal of universality, ideas popularized, incurable situations, Levinas conference, man/woman reciprocities, Parisian philosophy, philosophic disciple, philosophy misunderstood, politics of religion, The Face of the Other, the fate of ideas, the Other, the universal as the dominant, tragedy of the philosophic commons, University of Chicago
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“Peace in the Eye of the Storm”
“Peace in the Eye of the Storm” Today in morning meditation I noticed a sense of large-scale peacefulness in me. (Don’t worry, friends. It’ll pass, it’ll pass! I’ll still be me.) I must say it took me quite by surprise, … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, autonomy, bureaucracy, chivalry, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, cool, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, faith, fashion, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, history, history of ideas, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, male power, masculinity, master, mortality, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, power, psychology, public intellectual, relationships, roles, seduction, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, time
Tagged adventure of life, Alexander the Great, Alexandrian empire, American Academy of Religion, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Aristotle, Asia Society, bullies, burnout, cafes, cafes and philosophers, Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, classical civilization, college administrators, conceptual accuracy, cultural heritage, denouncers denounced, denunciation, Diogenes, down time, Emmanuel Levinas, Epicurus, foresight, foretelling the future, freedom of conscience, French Revolution, futurology, G.W.F. Hegel, Greek amphitheaters, groundless denunciation, guillotine, Hellenistic civilization, hindsight, Hitler, hope, Human Resources, hunters and hunted, ideological bullies, inner peace, intelligent hope, McCarthyism, meditation, Metropolitan Museum, micro-aggression, miracles, moral directness, museum exhibits, museum going, overloaded, owl of Minerva, pedagogic vocation, Pergamon, peripatetics, personnel file, philosophers, philosophic talent, Prometheus, punishment of Prometheus, Roman temples, safe space, Salem witch trials, search for truth, Stoics, Sydney Carton, tainted personnel files, Title IX effects, transmission of culture, wave of the future, witch hunts
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