Tag Archives: Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy
A Good Look at an Old Evil
The title of this column plays off my first book, A Good Look at Evil. There I revisited some of the main philosophical ways of understanding evil before I offered my own view, exhibiting its power to illuminate a wide … Continue reading →
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, academic allies, academic ally betrayed, academic anti-semitism, academic friendship, academic friendship betrayed, academic ingratitude, academics celebrate atrocities, an old evil, Anti-feminism, Anti-Semitism and discourteousness, Anti-Semitism and politics, Anti-Semitism at Brooklyn College, Anti-Semitism unprovoked, Athens and Jerusalem, betraying a friendship, Brooklyn College’s History Department, cat’s away the mice will play, celebrating war crimes, civilization’s foundations, defending civilization, defending civilization against Anti-Semitism, discourtesy, evil of Anti-Semitism, global animus, global anti-semitism, horse sense, horse whisperer, Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy, moral disintegration, moral downfall, moral free-fall, moral requirement, moral requirement ridiculed, normality and abnormality, Oct 7 and jihad, Oct 8 and academe, perennial anti-semitism, philosophical colleague, philosophical friendship, philosophical friendship betrayed, political hatred of Jews, professional ingratitude, safeguarding Jews in academe, societal breakdown, spiritual implosion, sudden change of character, trivializing Oct 7, understanding evil philosophically, ungallantry, where there’s smoke there’s fire
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Neither Athens nor Jerusalem
In 1867 Matthew Arnold wrote a book titled Culture and Anarchy in which he held up two saving springs of our civilization: Athens – from which we get the inner urge to “see things as they really are” – and … 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, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, 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, 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
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Tagged a legacy of teaching, academic breakdown and civilization, an unreal city in the future, Athens and Jerusalem, Brooklyn College, college students, decoding real life, desecrating the sacred, enabling rioting students, enlightenment ideals, functional power vs brute power, groves of academe, joining the gang, Leo Bronstein, Leo Strauss, libertine Gnosticism, losing the academy, Matthew Arnold, Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy, mob action, mobs on campus, philosophic assumptions, philosophic foundations of behavior, philosophy and personal decisions, philosophy and real life decisions, philosophy and the human experience, philosophy as guide for living, philosophy as shaping culture, philosophy as shaping culture throughout history, philosophy shaping the soul, philosophy’s civilizing mission, playing the victim, profaning the academy, profaning the altars, pulling down Athens and Jerusalem, social conformism, Socratic dialogue, Stanley Rosen, student teacher appreciation, students who don’t study, teachers who don’t teach, teaching art history, teaching as soul-shaping, teaching civilization’s power and presence, teaching philosophy, teaching philosophy as a transmission of a civilizational power and presence, teaching vs indoctrinating, The Academy, the House that Plato Built, the importance of philosophy in history and civilization, the Jewish essence, the unexamined life is not worth living, threatening Jewish students, Western Civilization, Western Civilization’s sources, winning hearts and minds, you are what you think
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