Tag Archives: gossip
“Grace Under Pressure”
“Grace Under Pressure” About one of her heroines, novelist George Eliot writes: “Her full nature … spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, action, alienation, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, chivalry, class, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, freedom, friendship, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, history, idealism, identity, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, law, legal responsibility, literature, love, male power, masculinity, memory, mortality, oppression, past and future, political, power, promissory notes, psychology, public facade, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, seduction, self-deception, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, Utopia, work, Zeitgeist
Tagged 586 B.C.E., 70 C.E., accounting, Bible class, bitterness, blame, bookkeeping, call to preach, career choice, careerism, commitment, congregants, consolation, conversion, covenant, default, defeat, Dorothea Brooke, Exodus, fame, fame and obscurity, First Temple's destruction, George Eliot's Middlemarch, gossip, gossips, group solidarity, group therapy, Haggadah, hero, heroine, hidden lives, identity, identity change, insolvency, inspiration, institutional solvency, job search, life blow, life commitment, obscurity, Passover, presence, rabbi as teacher, rabbinate, rabbinic career, rabbinic job search, rabbinical Call, rabbinical rulings, rabbis, reassurance, resolve, saving remnant, Second Temple's destruction, seder, servitude in Egypt, shepherd of souls, solvency, Success, sustenance, teacher, Torah Study, unhistoric acts, unleavened bread
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“Philosophical Gossip”
“Philosophical Gossip” Not long ago, the writer Cynthia Ozick had a front page piece in the New York Times Book Review about gossip. In her usual talent-laden voice, Ozick wrestles with the double sense of gossip. Could it be deplorable … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, Bible, childhood, chivalry, class, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, Jews, journalism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, memoir, mind control, modernism, mortality, nineteenth-century, oppression, past and future, philosophy, political, political movements, power, propaganda, psychology, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, seduction, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "the evil tongue", "the few and the many", "the noble and the base", 19th century novels, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Defining Evil Away: Arendt's Forgiveness", banality of evil, behaviorism, Bettina Stangneth's Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer, censorship, charisma, clandestine romance, classical philosophers, colleagues, collegiality, conventional religion, courtship, Cynthia Ozick, Cynthia Ozick's "The Novel's Evil Tongue", de-Nazification, dominance and submission, dramatic lives, eavesdropping, Eichmann trial transcript, emigres, evil as conformism, female vulnerability, Femininity, fiction, flattery, free will, freedom, German-Jewish philosophers, German-Jewish students, gossip, Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Hans Jonas Memoirs, Hans Jonas The Gnostic Religion, Henry James, historical characters, Jane Austen, lashon hara, Leo Strauss, Leo Strauss' Persecution and the Art of Writing, Letters 1925-1975: Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, lifelong love affair, lifelong romance, love letter, Male Power, malice, Martin Heidegger, modern sensibility, Modernity, moral choice, narrative, novelists, Orthodox Judaism, persecution, persona, personal magnetism, personal v political, philosophers, philosophic friendships, philosophic lives, philosophic romances, Philosophy v Religion, plot lines, private passion, private persons, professorial power, public intellectuals, public v private, refugees, seduction, slander, Stanley Rosen, Tarzan and Jane, The Nazi Party, The New York Times Book Review, theologians, Tolstoy, University of Chicago, unpretentiousness, whitewashing, World War II
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“Gossip”
“Gossip” One of Abigail’s Adages – though I have yet to post it – is this: Slander is always believed. Even more so if it’s in print. Jurgen Habermas wrote a book called (forgive me, it’s his title, not mine) … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, autonomy, chivalry, cities, class, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, heroes, history, history of ideas, identity, ideology, idolatry, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, martyrdom, mind control, nineteenth-century, philosophy, political, political movements, power, psychology, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, seduction, sex appeal, sexuality, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 18th century clubs, Ancient Judea, baby names, banishment, cafes, capital crime, cartoons, celebrity, character assasination, Classical Athens, coffee houses, credulity, crucifiction, damaging fiction, Danish philosophy, death, defamation, Downeast Maine, execution, friendship, gazettes, gossip, guilty verdicts, hemlock, Herodotus' Histories, I.F. Stone, I.F. Stones' The Trial of Socrates, I.F. Stones' Weekly, injustice, Jesus, Jurgen Habermas, justice, libel, Loyalty, magazines, malice, Marie Antoinette, modern Israel, moral luck, moral smallness, newsletters, op-eds, opinion journalism, ostracism, political cartoons, popularity, pornographic pamplets, post-war malaise, posthumous reputation, public opinion, quarrel, reputation, reputation loss, reputation rehabilitation, salons, shunning, slander, small town life, Socrates, Soren Kierkegaard, stereotyping, The Corsair, village life
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“Intimacy”
“Intimacy” A few months ago, a malicious third party made a comment about my mother, whom she had never actually known, that created distance between my mother and me. It was a puzzling, obscuring distance my mother had never occupied … Continue reading
Posted in art, erotic life, eternity, femininity, friendship, memoir, motherhood, relationships, the problematic of woman
Tagged a mother's love, afterlife communication, bereavement, breach of trust, death, distancing, dream visitations, dreams, emotional grounding, false accusations, gossip, I and Thou, intimacy, intuition, malice, Martin Buber, maternal, misrepresentations, mother and daughter, mourning, recognition, solipsism, tenderness
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“Yenta”
“Yenta” I’ll venture a definition: a busybody whose interest and advice is not really well-intentioned, though it purports to be. A yenta is generally female, but if we assume that a man can be one too, an old-country joke comes … Continue reading
Posted in culture, political, relationships, social conventions
Tagged childlessness, Egypt, gossip, intimacy, Jewish jokes, Moses, privacy, real life, singleness, Yenta
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