Tag Archives: Leo Strauss

Secrets of the Kingdom

Years ago, I was in the audience to hear a lecture by Columbia Professor of Ancient History Morton A. Smith who was discussing a verse he claimed to have discovered, anciently deleted from the gospel of Mark. In this new-found verse, Jesus … Continue reading

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Book Matters

Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes By Jerry Z. Muller This well-crafted, exhaustively researched, intellectually balanced biography of Jacob Taubes may be on its way to becoming the talk of the town.  Since its subject is an … Continue reading

Posted in book reviews, books, Gnosticism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

“How I Got to be a Person Whose Whole Life is Lived in Cliches”

“How I Got to be a Person Whose Whole Life is Lived in Cliches”  The Rabbis inveigh against gossip.  Since a lost reputation is almost as hard to recover as a lost life, they deem it equivalent to a capital … Continue reading

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art of living, autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, 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, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, motherhood, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, 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, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Being Torn Apart–as a Method”

Being Torn Apart — as a Method Rene Descartes, the reputed “founder of modern philosophy,” held that the most important thing in life and thought – the thing without which nothing of significance can happen – is to have a … Continue reading

Posted in academe, action, alienation, art, autonomy, class, contemplation, contradictions, cool, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, history, history of ideas, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master, memoir, philosophy, political, political movements, power, psychology, reductionism, relationships, roles, seduction, social conventions, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments