Tag Archives: Virginia Woolf
“My Inescapable Femininity”
Sylvia Plath 1932-1963 Sylvia Plath is one writer I never wanted to read – partly because she seemed to have a “cult” following. My reluctance had, however, another motive: I don’t like to visit the lives or the works of … 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 God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, 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, 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 academic mentor’s advice, academic mentor’s insensitivity, academic politics, Alice James, anti-fascism, anti-heroes, “My Inescapable Femininity”, Barnard College classmates, Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, biochemical psychology, brutal honesty, defining women, envying men’s freedom, Femininity, feminism’s over-simplifications, feminism’s personal cost, Freudian therapy, guilt by association, Henry James’ sister, living truthfully, love and suffering, male competition, personal honesty in culture, personal integrity in history, philosophy and femininity, philosophy as a masculine discipline, political extremism, prefeminist values, preventable suicide, preventable tragedies, psychic vulnerability, pulling moral rank, reductionism and femininity, rejecting cultural stereotypes, reversing trauma, Revolution and messianism, revolution and utopia, revolutionary competition, revolutionary purity, revolutionary sex appeal, self-masculinized academic women, Sigmund Freud, suicidal women, Sylvia Plath, the women’s movement, tightrope walking, trauma and the brain, Virginia Woolf, war of the sexes, William James’ sister, women and suicide, women defined as losers, women friends, women friends vs suicide, women in prefeminist culture, women supporting women, women writers, women’s failures
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“Ideas and Real People”
“Ideas and Real People” When I need consolation, when sorrow exerts its hard claims, I turn instinctively to what Plato would call the realm of forms: beautiful things and ideas that are clear and significant. When our friend Leo … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, 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, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, mysticism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, 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, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged A.J. Ayer, aiming at weak spots, Albert Einstein, Anna Akhmatova, anti-fascist, Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, Boris Pasternak’s Dr.Zhivago, British Embassy, British eyes and ears, British Foreign Office, centrality of ideas, Chaim Weizman, classical art, classical bas reliefs, classical serenity, classical statues, clear ideas, communist party, communist politics, communist revolution, completeness, consolation, cultural definition, cultural vulnerability, Culture, culture against itself, culture defined, culture shapers, destroying a culture, dispatches from Washington, Drew Pearson, eternal achievement, extremism, family tree, fear and shame, George Kennan, Grunewald Crucifixion, Hassidic lineage, hegemony, high culture, humanistic culture, intellectual culture, intellectual friendship, intellectual moderation, intellectuals denounced, intellectuals in the 1930’s, intellectuals purged, intellectuals under terror, intelligentsia, interesting man, Isaiah Berlin, Italian civilization, Italian communist, J. L. Austin, Leo Bronstein, liberal culture, life aims, life under tyranny, living for ideas, Lord Halifax, making a difference, Metropolitan Museum, Michael Ignatieff’s Isaiah Berlin: A Life, moral compromise, motorcycle accident, Mussolini’s dictatorship, nuanced diplomacy, opinion shaper, Oxford education, paisley, Party Line, Plato, Plato’s realm of forms, post-communist revolution, power of ideas, Public Intellectual, reading in prison, Riga Latvia, significant ideas, Soviet Union, Stephen Spender, Strasbourg, strategic mind, Stuart Hampshire, sturdy mind, the Russian soul, things of beauty, Tsar’s overthrow, twentieth century intellectuals, tyranny, USSR, utopian delusions, Virginia Woolf, Walter Lippman, war of ideas, Washington rumors, weakness in culture, Winston Churchill, World War II
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