Tag Archives: father-daughter relation
Pixels Thin and Thick
Pixels Thin and Thick On the day I got married, Jerry said to me after the ceremony, “Look in the mirror!” Puzzled, I pulled down the car mirror, looked, and said aloud, My God! I looked different. Like a photo … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, action, afterlife, alienation, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, books, childhood, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, memoir, memory, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, novels, ontology, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, 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, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", American Philosophical Association, animal ethology, animal flirting, animal friendships, being where I should be, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, dense presence, depressed animals, Eric Voegelin Society, familiar landmarks, father-daughter relation, feeling abandoned, feeling precarious, filial duty, filial obligation, first love, frontier of experience, haunting memory, interspecies friendship, life challenge, life problematic, life purpose resolved, life question, life themes, lifelong purposes, loneliness, orangutans, otters, painful memories, Parisian first love, personal history, pitching podcasts, Romantic memory, romantic terminus, story's end, thinning presence, unfamiliar situation, unmapped terrain, unprecedented experience, untrodden territory, VoegelinView, writing what you believe, zoo habitats
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New Year Retrospective
New Year Retrospective I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. If they had any force for me, I might. First, you gotta believe in those things. But I do find living force in going back over the path recently trodden, to … 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, books, childhood, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, life and death struggle, love, male power, masculinity, memoir, memory, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, novels, ontology, past and future, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, relationships, religion, roles, secular, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, 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, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 2020, 2021, 5th Commandment, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", Athenians and Socrates, audio book, Bernard Harrison’s Blaming the Jews: The Persistence of a Delusion, British philosopher, Clifton Fadiman, Columbia class of 1925, competition in suffering, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conscious truth, corrigible life project, course correction, dialectical tests, disloyalty to truth, Dr. Mark Bussell, elephant in the room, evil defined, failure as success, father-daughter relation, filial piety, genius, good clean fun, happiness, happiness in New York, Henry M. Rosenthal, higher code of feeling, history and the Jews, illustrated novels, intellectual memoir, Jewish intellectual, Jews on the Brain, keeping a journal, Life Force, Lionel Trilling, living dialectically, Loma Linda Neuropathic Therapy Center, materials for archiving, mental health in New York, Meyer Schapiro, narrative plotline, neuropathy treatments, New Year resolution, New York intellectuals, non-fiction narrative, novelty of narrative view, pandemic shutdown, personal growth, personal memoir, philosophic colleagues, philosophic narrative, philosophy dramatized, Platonic dialogues, satiric sense, Socrates, spoiling one’s story, talking about Jews, the drama of philosophy, theologians, Thomas Altizer, time for review, unconscious influence, unique talent, universalism in religion, world religions, yearly review, you gotta believe
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Touching Up Roots
Touching Up Roots Today, for the first time in my life, I’ve tried – with the help of the kit I sent for – to color my own hair. What’s the worst that could happen? I’ll come out looking like … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art of living, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, books, childhood, chivalry, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, ontology, oppression, past and future, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, 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, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Abraham and Sarah, Abraham’s bluff, ancestral roots, being a single woman, biblical couples, biblical eros, biblical ungallantry, Book of Numbers, coloring one’s hair, competing with God, cultural roots, demanding your rights, divine man/woman partnership, divine-human partnership, face-to-face lovemaking, father-daughter relation, feminism and Judaism, feminist protest, fight with my name on it, fighting human nature, fighting nature, fighting till I lose, fighting till I win, filial piety, God and romantic life, gray hair, Hebrew Bible, Henry M. Rosenthal, home hair color, Jacob and Rachel, Jewish roots, Judaism and women, letting nature take its course, Lot’s daughters, Lot’s guests, men rescuing women, monogamous passion, not my fight, passion for God, personal God, problematic biblical sources, Song of Songs, the Bible and women, the Bible's woman problem, the Pentateuch, the Torah, Thomas Cahill’s The Gift of the Jews, Torah Study, touching up roots, trial by ordeal, virtual bible study, woman’s coping strategies, women in peril, women of the Bible, women rescuing men
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Fording the Flood
Fording the Flood I had a dream the other night, depicting the journey I’m in the midst of at present. On a bus traveling long distance, I was a passenger. It was not a bus of recent vintage. It lacked … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, books, childhood, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, male power, masculinity, memoir, memory, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, novels, oppression, past and future, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, 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, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged academic life, “The Great American Novel”, bright young men, Clifton Fadiman, collegial competitiveness, Columbia University, Columbia University’s class of 1925, crossing dryshod, dream interpretation, dream journey, extreme subtlety, father-daughter relation, feeling flooded, feeling overwhelmed, figure out of his time, flood waters, Freud, genius of the class, Hasidic Master, Hebrew prophet, Henry M. Rosenthal, Henry M. Rosenthal’s Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes’s Secret; Spinoza’s Way, Hunter College, inner journey, inner summons, intellectual pecking order, Israel, Israel’s providential role, Jeanne Hersch, life of the spirit, life problematic, Lionel Trilling, literary critic, literary parties, Marx, meaningful dreams, Modernism, Modernity, Mordecai Kaplan, Moses, opinion shapers, past life vision, past lives, philosophers, psychic vision, reconstructionism, Red Sea crossing, Reed Sea, Reform Judaism, spiritual frustration, supersessionism, sure-footedness, talking well, the best talker, the Holocaust, the Jewish spirit, the Jewish state, vintage vehicle, weather emergencies, white heat intensity
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Another Door
Another Door After the death of my mother, I devoted long weeks to clearing my parents’ Manhattan apartment. It seemed the bitterest of times. All the tapestried layers, the complexities of them – the charm, the humor, the remarks that … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, autonomy, Biblical God, childhood, cities, class, contemplation, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, femininity, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, immortality, Jews, life and death struggle, love, masculinity, memoir, memory, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, motherhood, ontology, past and future, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romantic love, social construction, social conventions, 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, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged clearing an apartment, Cold War experts, Communist regimes, condensed insights, death of father, death of mother, decoding the past, double meanings, Eastern Europe, end of communism, father-daughter relation, filial duty, last words, life journey, Maine Coast Memorial Hospital, mother/daughter relation, parting words, people smarts, personal effects, personal pre-history, plague diary, Polish pope, pope in Warsaw, Sovietologists, the past is not past, time of the plague, time out of time, Wittgensteinian understanding
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My Father’s Diaries
My Father’s Diaries In the wake of the pandemic presently sweeping our small planet, the train of projects I had is now stalled. As the fact of this frustration sank in, it came to me to turn to a task … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, Bible, Biblical God, books, childhood, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, 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, memoir, memory, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, ontology, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, scientism, secular, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, 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, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged action without expectation, aesthetic intelligence, archiving contemporary papers, Biblical characters, biblical frame, bodily awareness, co-religionists, Columbia University’s class of 1925, death explained, decoding philosophers, diaries, dream encounter, enigmatic brilliance, eye of the storm of history, father-daughter relation, filial piety, Henry M. Rosenthal, Henry M. Rosenthal’s Consolations of Philosophy, Henry M. Rosenthal’s journals, intellectual diaries 1927-29, intellectual genius, intellectual journals, intellectuals of the ’20s, intellectuals of the ’30s, Jewish chosenness, Jewish co-religionists, Jewish identity, Jewish location in history, life problem, life problematic, moral intelligence, my father’s papers, pandemic, paternal legacy, personal uniqueness, philosopher’s daughter, plague refugees, posthumous publication, prayer guidance, private diaries, projects for the plague, reading character, self-recognition, self-reflection, sources of insight. Philosophic clarification, unfinished manuscripts
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The Coziness of Louisa May Alcott
The Coziness of Louisa May Alcott “Coziness” is not a word in the highest repute. In the 17th century, when the philosophers called “modern” were allowing the new physics to define reality, the features they deemed objectively-out-there were measurable: like … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, books, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, erotic life, eternity, ethics, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, immortality, institutional power, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, martyrdom, masculinity, memoir, memory, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, nineteenth-century, novels, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, scientism, secular, self-deception, 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, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 17th Century Philosophers, Alcott as nurse, becoming a writer, catering to fashion, coming-of-age novels, cultural ideals of womanhood, death of Beth, farther shore., father-daughter relation, fatherly love, fictional simplifications, filial piety, Frederick Douglas, Greta Gerwig, guardian angels, happy endings, hard-edged modern views, hearth and home, Henry David Thoreau, home life, homelikeness, hope and faith, ideals of girlhood, important thinkers, Julia Ward Howe, literary catering, living one’s talent, Louisa May Alcott, Louisa May Alcott’s death, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Margaret Fuller, Marmee, Materialism, maternal protection, measurable reality, modern feeling, motherly love, Nathaniel Hawthorne, objectivity, parental guidance, personal fulfillment, physical reality, plain living and high thinking, processing influences, Ralph Waldo Emerson, relativism, repressing anger, sentimentality, size, subjectivity, the primary qualities, the secondary qualities, Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist family, unsentimentality, velocity, weight
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