Tag Archives: search for truth
How Hegel Helps
How Hegel Helps A British analytic philosopher friend read my “Obit” column of last week and noticed that I’d spent some of my professional time with G. W. F. Hegel, the nineteenth-century German philosopher. He emailed to ask what on … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, books, bureaucracy, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, life and death struggle, literature, male power, masculinity, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, modernism, moral evaluation, moral psychology, nineteenth-century, novels, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, relationships, religion, roles, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 19th-century German philosophy, a man’s world, advice for women, American universities, Ariadne’s thread, before and after WWI, boundaries on desire, British Analytic Philosophy, cultural era, cultural fad, cultural platforms, cultural studies, culturally relative truth, culture as way of thinking, defining an era, defining culture, empathy, fashionable feminism, female passivity, flappers, girls in the 1920s, Henry James, ideology v experience, intellectual fashions, intellectual groupie, key motivation, life as evidence, literary studies, lived experience, men and feminism, opinion-shapers, Parisian deconstructionist, Parisian intellectuals, Parisian post-moderns, philosophy in the Anglosphere, philosophy of history, Presentism, professional philosophy, queer studies, search for truth, the Absolute in culture, the downfall of a culture, the end of an era, the humanities, The Jazz Age, the right questions, thought-forms, WB Yeats’ The Second Coming, why cultures fall, women’s liberation, women’s studies, World War I
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How A Woman Can Be Liberated
How A Woman Can Be Liberated When I started this column a few years ago, I vowed not to give advice. I even put that in our subtitle: “The Non-Advice Column.” So why am I about to give some? Well, … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, autonomy, beauty, books, childhood, chivalry, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, journalism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, motherhood, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, roles, romance, romantic love, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, 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, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged a child’s body, a woman’s appeal, adolescence, Advice, American boys, American courtship, anatomy isn’t destiny, biological clock, biological imperative, boys and girls, child’s flexibility, de Beauvoir and Sartre, debts to feminism, European courtship, existentialist feminism, experience as evidence, extreme skepticism, false consciousness, Feminism’s preconditions, Frederich Nietzsche, Freud and women, Freudian theories, gender boundaries, getting dates, girlhood to womanhood, giving advice, growing up, growing up and liking it, ideas and culture, identity as a choice, identity theory, intellectual curiosity, Jean-Paul Sartre’s freedom, Jean-Paul Sartre’s fundamental project, Karl Marx, living a lie, losing inhibitions, male agendas, male-authored theories, moral motivation, natural laws, on the shelf, opinion shapers, personal consciousness and power structure, philosophical feminism, philosophy and courtship, philosophy and eros, playmates, pleasing men, puberty, search for truth, seduction’s consequences, self as an illusion, self-invention, sexual identity claims, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, testing ideas, the for-itself, trendy thinking, truth and objectivity, truth claims, unfairness to women, women giving up, women’s narratives
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Private Matters
Private Matters The man I love has gone through harrowing surgery this week. It was not one of the operations currently at the frontier of the surgical arts. Once, it was. Now it’s about at the middle. Surgeons do it … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, 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, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, memoir, memory, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, novels, ontology, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, 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, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 'till death do us part, academe, acceptance, action fields, aloneness, beshert, broken history, bypass surgery, cutting-edge surgery, difficult recoveries, facing the abyss, falling in love, falsified life, friendship, Heart surgery, human entanglements, husband and wife, institutional supports, life renewal, life system, limit situations, living artificially, living naturally, long term storage, Manhattan parks and museums, marriage for modern women, marriage vows, meaningful work, mind/body relations, moral accounting, moral record, moral support, New York City life, ordeal, philosophic commitment, philosophical articles, philosophy professor, professor/student interaction, recovery process, relativism, search for truth, short term storage, single life, solitude., state-of-the-art medical care, survivor’s predicament, taking risks, the city one loves, the old neighborhood, true love, truthfulness, untangling life knots, Upper East Side, women’s identity
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“Peace in the Eye of the Storm”
“Peace in the Eye of the Storm” Today in morning meditation I noticed a sense of large-scale peacefulness in me. (Don’t worry, friends. It’ll pass, it’ll pass! I’ll still be me.) I must say it took me quite by surprise, … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, autonomy, bureaucracy, chivalry, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, cool, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, faith, fashion, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, history, history of ideas, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, male power, masculinity, master, mortality, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, power, psychology, public intellectual, relationships, roles, seduction, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, time
Tagged adventure of life, Alexander the Great, Alexandrian empire, American Academy of Religion, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Aristotle, Asia Society, bullies, burnout, cafes, cafes and philosophers, Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, classical civilization, college administrators, conceptual accuracy, cultural heritage, denouncers denounced, denunciation, Diogenes, down time, Emmanuel Levinas, Epicurus, foresight, foretelling the future, freedom of conscience, French Revolution, futurology, G.W.F. Hegel, Greek amphitheaters, groundless denunciation, guillotine, Hellenistic civilization, hindsight, Hitler, hope, Human Resources, hunters and hunted, ideological bullies, inner peace, intelligent hope, McCarthyism, meditation, Metropolitan Museum, micro-aggression, miracles, moral directness, museum exhibits, museum going, overloaded, owl of Minerva, pedagogic vocation, Pergamon, peripatetics, personnel file, philosophers, philosophic talent, Prometheus, punishment of Prometheus, Roman temples, safe space, Salem witch trials, search for truth, Stoics, Sydney Carton, tainted personnel files, Title IX effects, transmission of culture, wave of the future, witch hunts
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“The Politics of Ideas”
“The Politics of Ideas” They say you are what you eat, but it’s been my experience that you are what you believe. People live and die for the ideas they believe to be true. What is more, people dress, work … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, Christianity, cities, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, Hegel, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immortality, institutional power, Jews, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, medieval, Messianic Age, mind control, modernism, mortality, mysticism, non-violence, ontology, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, power, propaganda, psychology, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, seduction, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, twenty-first century, Utopia, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 586 B.C., ancient history, anger, anomaly, anti-semitism, aporia, apostles, Apostles Peter and James, archaeology, arguing to find the truth, arguing to win, argument, belief systems, beliefs, Brooklyn College, Christendom, Christian Fathers, Christian Jewish rapportchement, Christians, circumcision, competition for converts, counter-example, country gospel, damnation, destruction of The Temple, dialectic, diversity, Early Christianity, elites, Ethics, evangelical Christians, evil inclination, Feminism, feminist politics, feminist slogans, First Temple, freedom, Gentiles, good inclination, History, ideas, ideology, Institutional Power, institutional practice, integrity, inter-religious dialogue, Jesus, Jewish antiquity, Jewish authorities, Jews, John G. Gager's "Who Made Early Christianity: The Jewish Lives of the Apostle Paul", Judaica, Judaism, liberation, life of ideas, Mind Control, missionary, models, morals, mores, multi-culturalism, New Yorkers, opinion shapers, original sin, paradigms, personal conduct, philosophy professor, Plato, Political Movements, politics, politics of ideas, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton University, principles, refutation, religious politics, resentment, salvation, search for truth, shared assumptions, sinners, social boundries, social conduct, social construct, social control, social penalties, social practice, Socrates, Socratic dialogues, sophisticates, steles, supersessionism, synagogue donors, synagogue membership, synagogues in the ancient world, The Book of Acts, The Covenant, The Crucifixion, the Law, The Passion of Christ, the rift between Christians and Jews, the Righteous Gentile, theology, thought police, thought world, tragic history, truth, world views, wrongheadedness, You are what you believe, You are what you eat
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