I put down the bread and the cup and get up on my knees, twisting a little. I pull up my shirt so she can see my wound. She gives it a sympathetic frown. “I can clean that.” She gets up and goes for something. When I was a kid and skinned my knee or…
Category
Philosophy
Real Activism Being Replaced by Virtual Activism
But it gets worse. Gladwell’s argument, as I read it, isn’t simply the observation that Web 2.0 is ill suited for social activism. The real worry is that Web 2.0 creates an illusion of activism. That is, real world activism is being traded in for a virtual activism. And the dual meanings of the word…
Museums as Monuments to Imperialsism
Most European museums are, among other things, memorials of the rise of nationalism and imperialism. Every capital must have its own museum of painting, sculpture, etc., devoted in part to exhibiting the greatness of its artistic past, and, in other part, to exhibiting the loot gathered by its monarchs in conquest of other nations; for…
Why I am voting (and why I almost didn’t).
But there is still the delicate point of participation in elections. Should anarchists vote? If so, should they form a party? For my part, like many anarchists, I think not. To vote is to take part in the organization of the false democracy that has been set up forcefully by the middle class. No matter…
The Man Who Loves Beautiful Things
Consider a man who loves beautiful things, who makes a point of being present at new tragedies, seeing new pictures, and hearing new music. Such a man is not a philosopher, because he loves only beautiful things, whereas the philosopher loves beauty in itself. The man who only loves beautiful things is dreaming, whereas the…
If your faith and doctrine are like a beautiful house, DO NOT READ THIS!
If your faith and doctrine are like a beautiful house, with the clean lines of certainty and the firm foundation of God’s Truth, then letting me into your house would be, I’d expect, quite unsettling. Because I’d always be looking at a wall and saying “Is this a load bearing wall? Let me knock it…
Pessimism Is Not Brave
“Pessimism is an attitude that may look brave—and I think this is really quite interesting—because there are certain people who propose it with a rather macho stance, you know: ‘I’m tough enough to see the facts!’ But it’s actually a very cowardly way of dealing with the world. Because if you only think that things…
Emergence Christianity and Dualistic Thinking
We thought that we overcame racism in the 60’s; we thought the church overcame triumphalism at Vatican II, and now forty years later we are right back into this regressive and dualistic thinking all over again. This is the nature of the ego if we have not formed a contemplative mind, a big mind, that…
“Creativity” is the universal of universals
“Creativity” is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact. It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively. It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity. “Creativity” is the principle of novelty….
Alternative Hedonism
“…the market economy is providing the goods that we still do, I think, want to have, [e.g.] forms of exercise, forms of relating to each other, forms of leisure time in various ways. It is selling us back these goods that we have sacrificed through overwork.” This quote belongs to Kate Soper who, during an…