Tag Archives: Sartre

Ave Atque Vale (Hail and Farewell)

Posted on August 19, 2025 by Abigail

The other day I scanned the internet for news of ex-friends who’d stayed significant in my memory. “We quarreled,” as French philosopher Sartre said about one former friend, the philosopher Merleau-Ponty, “a quarrel does not matter. It’s just one more … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, 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, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, 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 academic colleagues, academic dramas of character, academic politics, aristocratic decadence, aristocrats and plebeians, Augustine's boyhood theft, ave atque vale, bad debt, belated farewell, code of conduct, code of honor, concepts of logic, creative logician, decadence, dramas of character, drunk driving, ex-friend, fateful choice, filicide, former friends, French philosophers, friends beyond death, friends beyond the grave, friends’ lives, hail and farewell, honorable losers, labyrinth of man-woman relations, legal redress, loan between friends, logic tutor, love of wisdom, man/woman labyrinth, Merleau-Ponty, moral candor, Moral crisis, moral discernment, moral price of job security, moral price of tenure, moral risk, moral temptation, outward repentance, paying one’s dues, philosopher ex-friend, philosophical colleagues, philosophical conversation, philosophical curiosity, playing with good and evil, politics of experience, pompous philosopher, pompous wordiness, potential dishonesty, prep school and manhood, quarrels of friends, reformed character, reformed church-goer, reformed rake, remembered friends, risking one’s honor, Sartre, selling out, selling your vote, sense of honor, significant friends, symbols and words, toying with wrongdoing, trained emotional suppression, training to suppress feelings, unrepaid loan, upright citizen | Leave a comment

“Seizing the Narrative”

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Abigail

“Seizing the Narrative” Long ago, I waited in New York City for a promised letter from Paris that never came. My first love, not a good correspondent, nor a good keeper of promises, was a communist. Not a party member, … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, femininity, history of ideas, ideology, life and death struggle, male power, memoir, philosophy, political, psychology, race, sexuality, social conventions, the problematic of woman | Tagged Abul Ala Mawdudi, Andre Philip, bourgeois, British Pakistanis, communism, Critique de la raison dialectique, Deborah Baker, delusions, Fidelista, humiliation, In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom, Maajid Nawaz, Margaret Marcus, martyrdom, Maryam Jameelah, middle-class milieu, Muslim, narrative, New Left, psyche, psychoanalysis, racism, radical, Radical: My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism, Sartre, sexual self-respect, skinheads, social gauntlets, The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, theory of history, therapy, utopian, virginity, world history | Leave a comment

“Friendly Fire”

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Abigail

“Friendly Fire” Sartre and Merleau-Ponty were among the more influential of the twentieth-century’s French philosophers. They had been friends, but Sartre had broken with Merleau-Ponty over some political disagreement. When Merleau-Ponty died in mid-life, prematurely, Sartre felt free to write … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, femininity, feminism, friendship, Hegel, literature, memoir, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, relationships, the problematic of woman | Tagged better angels, café, eulogies, female friendship, first love, fjords, French philosophers, friends, good and evil, heart of darkness, Hegel, Joseph Conrad, Merleau-Ponty, moral choice, morality, Nietzsche, Nordic women, Paris, political disagreement, quarrels, Sartre, sin, unresolved relations, wicked mother | Leave a comment

Tag Archives: Sartre

“Friendly Fire”

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