Tag Archives: survival of the fittest

Naked Apes?

Posted on October 21, 2025 by Abigail

Lately I happen to have been reading two books on what Darwin – and his intellectual descendants (like Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene or Jane Goodall, In the Shadow of Man) – got wrong! The two books are philosopher … 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, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, 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, Industrial Revolution, 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, Renaissance, 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 abortion public opposition private need, abstract ideals vs lived views, ape reproductive strategies, apes and pair bonding, apes and parenting, Applied Ethics, Atheism, authenticity and sociobiology, Bible as history book, competition and courtship, Creationism, culture and theories, Darwin’s allies, Darwinian courtship, David Hume, David Stove’s Darwinian Fairy Tales, Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape, DMA, erotic life and reductionism, etiquette for courtship, female guilt, female pliancy, groupthink, healthy relationships, herd mentality, Homo sapiens and monogamy, human brains and monkey brains, human evolution, human mating strategies, human psychology, idealism and cynicism, idealism vs real life, Jane Goodall’s In the Shadow of Man, jealousy in human beings, Jonathan Leaf’s The Primate Myth, lived philosophy, male guilt, MRI, Oedipus complex, pair bonding and human evolution, philosophical reductionism, possessiveness in human beings, power politics, prehistoric monogamy, primitivism and social style, profaning the sacred, Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, sex differences, simian reproductive strategies, social influence of theories, social result of wrong theories, sociobiology and bigotry, sociobiology and civilization, sociobiology and gender roles, sociobiology and human courtship, sociobiology and man/woman relations, sociobiology and misanthropy, sociobiology and misogyny, sociobiology and seduction, sociobiology and sincerity, sociobiology’s social influence, survival of the fittest, theology vs real life, theories and human reality, Thomas Malthus, toughness in women, unhealthy relationships, virginity and courtship, war of the sexes, who gets abortions, young men and chivalry | 2 Comments

The Story that Didn’t End

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Abigail

I hold the view that one’s life is best understood as a True Story with many chapters, the story-line running through one after the other, chronologically and continuously. In the narrative of my life, there was a recent chapter that … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, books, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, 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 | Tagged a true story reopened, abuse of trust, academic support for Hamas, an unfinished story, animal intuition, barrel racing, brute power vs functional power, campus antisemitism, competitive equestrian events, competitive riding events, concern for Israel, conflict of duties, Country riding, Darwinism, English vs Western riding, escapism, expecting a response, facing the truth, fate in novels, female cattiness, female competitiveness, from the horse's mouth, horse intuitions, horse sense, horse whisperer and rider, horse-whisperer, horses' understanding of people, inadmissable truth, Israel and American Jews, living one’s story, made up stories, Maine, mean girls, misaddressed letter, misreported stories, missing information, moral contradictions, moral dilemma, moral holiday, moral rank-pulling, narrative view, novelists who rely on fate, Oct 7 2023 on my mind, open-minded to a fault, open-mindedness, pedagogic responsibilities, people who know horses, power games, professional horse riding, reaching out for closure, repairing a wrong, riding competitions, riding in Maine, riding instructor, rodeo competitions, sexual competition, silence as a response, status competition, story that needs an ending, survival of the fittest, teaching philosophy, Thomas Hardy effect, Thomas Hardy's novels, Thomas Hardy's use of fate, trivial accidents and important consequences, trivial causes with serious consequences, true story, unacknowledged prejudice, unhappy endings, waiting for closure, Western Pleasure, Western riding, what the horse knows | 1 Comment

Snobbism

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Abigail

Snobbism I was reminded of how much I hate snobbism by another biography of a philosopher. Having just finished Ray Monk’s Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, from which I learned about a man, an era and a creative philosophical method … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, anthropology, art of living, autonomy, books, bureaucracy, childhood, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, life and death struggle, male power, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, oppression, past and future, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, roles, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spirituality, status, status of women, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Alan Turing, American high school, biography of a philosopher, Cambridge University, charm v character, Cheryl Misak’s Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers, contemporary culture, continental snobs, cultural era, cultural pecking order, culture of intimidation, Darwinian games, dinner with the count, discouraging bullies, dying young, economics, English public school, English snobbery, English snobs, English universities, Ethiopian nobility, fox hunt, French aristocrat, French count, good at games, good at school work, good manners, hereditary privilege, high school rank, hounds at the hunt, influencing Wittgenstein, intellectual aristocracy, intellectual hierarchy, invited philosophy paper, Kurt Godel, life as a test of thought, living one’s views, math, outliving high school rank, outranking somebody, philosophers’ lives, philosophic creativity, philosophic method, philosophy, post-lecture gathering, prep school, pretentiouness, Ramsey Pricing, Ramsey Sentences, Ramseyan Humility, Ramsey’s influence, Ramsey’s Problem, Ramsification, Ray Monk’s Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, rudeness, Russian princesses, snob as hound at the foxhunt, snobbism, snubbing, social ordeal, social target, sporty type, survival of the fittest, the Keynes-Ramsey Rule, the Ramsey Test for Conditionals, thinker’s life, thought and life, unofficial caste, unpretentiousness, Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus | 2 Comments

The Moral Markers

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Abigail

The Moral Markers From time to time, I pause to picture how the recent phases of my life would look to me if there were no God in the pictures. It’s a sort of thought experiment. Philosophers are given to … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, action, alienation, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, books, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, journalism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, masculinity, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, nineteenth-century, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged abstraction, absurdity, agnostic, Atheism, atheistic world view, Authenticity, beyond good and evil, brute forces, complementarity in friendship, concrete experience, consequential decisions, constructive orientation, controlled experiment, cynicism, deleted datum, erasing evidence, experimental confirmation, experimental disconfirmation, false consciousness, fashionable abstractions, fashionable views, feigned belief, fork in the road, Friedrich Nietzsche, integrating experience, limited palette, loyalty v betrayal, Martin Heidegger, meaning of life, meaningful life, models of the ultimate, modern life, Modernity, moral choice, moral fork in the road, moral indices, moral markers, moral neutrality, no rhyme or reason, novelistic plotline, objectivity claims, opinion shapers, opposites attract, pointlessness, power relations, projection, random energy, reality as absurd, relationship dynamics, Social Darwinism, social pretense, survival of the fittest, Swedish descent, the Modern world, the Post-Modern world, theism, theistic world view, thought experiment, Valhalla, Vedantist, Viking worldview | Leave a comment

World History and Me

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Abigail

World History and Me Last night I watched a documentary about the “discovery” by Europeans of the Western Hemisphere – that vast tract of land between Europe and the India that the spice-hunters sought. In my childhood, that discovery was … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art of living, Biblical God, Christianity, contradictions, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, ethics, evil, exploitation, faith, films, freedom, guilt and innocence, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, medieval, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, non-violence, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, reductionism, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, scientism, self-deception, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, suffering, terror, terrorism, 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, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 10 commandments, 16th century advances, 17th century colonists, advances in navigation, advances in ship-building, advances in world trade, adventurers, American good guys, American guilt, ancient Israelites, animal nature, australopithecines, biblical battles, Biblical historicity, Bronze Age cities, cherem, chosen people, co-religionists, collective atonement, collective guilt, collective penance, colonization, conquest of the weak, conquistadores, Darwinians, defeat of the weakest, depopulation, discovery of America, European diseases, European exploration, European massacres, evolutionary survival, exile, explorers, extinction of hominids, fossil record, genocide, God's blueprint, God's people, God's sovereignty, hegemony, historical guilt, Homer, hominid competition, hominids, homo erectus, homo naledi, homo neanderthalensis, homo sapiens sapiens, hypocrisy, idol worship, indigenous peoples, interpersonal aggression, Israelite wars of destruction, Jesus, Maccabees, man as animal, manipulative moralizing, missionaries, moral high ground, moral posturing, moral rank-pulling, Native Americans, natural defenses, Nazi bad guys, Nazi language, New World, niceness and brutality, Nietzsche, non-fiction narrative, non-violence, Old Testament God, organized pogroms, pagan ways, Pentateuch, personal history, pioneers, policing language, political theory, pre-Columbian population, promised land, psychological self-defense, Queen Isabella, religious non-violence, religious violence, Roman hegemony, securing territory, small pox, survival of the fittest, survival of the strongest, territorial defense, theory of history, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, Torah Study, Trojan War, TV documentary, violence, virgin continent, virtue signaling, voyage of Columbus, war of all against all, will-to-power | 2 Comments

“Meta-Narratives”

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Abigail

“Meta-Narratives” There is a French post-modern philosopher who writes, “I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.” By that is meant, there is no large story – no history of humanity as such – into which our private stories, the novellas … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, anthropology, art, autonomy, cities, class, contemplation, contradictions, cool, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, history, history of ideas, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, Jews, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master, memoir, mind control, modernism, nineteenth-century, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, power, psychology, public intellectual, race, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, seduction, sex appeal, slave, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "all the world's a stage", Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Getting Past Marx and Freud", abstractions, Adolf Hitler, Albert Camus, alienation, analytic geometry, Cartesian Method, Charles Darwin, civilization, class warfare, communism, counter-narrative, fanaticism, fiction, historiography, Holocaust, humanism, ideality, imagination, Jean-Francios Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition, Jewish influence, Karl Marx, laws of nature, laws of physics, macro-history, man-made meta-narratives, Marxism, meta-narrative, Modernity, narrative, Newton, nonfiction, novelists, novels, Old World charm, plot, Providential history, Rene Descartes' Rules for the Direction of the Mind, science, self evidence, seventeenth century, skepticism, story, survival of the fittest, theory of evolution, Timothy Snyder's Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, urban planning, urban renewal, utopia, W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming", wage slaves, Western history, world history, writers | Leave a comment

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