Creatively Advancing into Novelty
“What I am writing may seem very remote and abstract. However, it has one implication that can be sensed right away. If we talk about energy as being the most fundamental thing there is, and events as being the only units of reality we ultimately can know, we are immediately describing a world in which…
“Corporations don’t have values; they have an image…Their main objective is to make money.” —Merry Mahaffey It’s not uncommon for corporations to espouse “corporate values.” We’ve all heard this phrase before. But it should be obvious to anyone that these “values” are little more than meaningless slogans or tag-lines; they’re not meant to be taken…
““The Mother is chasing you,” he said, “and you must surrender to Her…She calls to everyone, and to ignore Her is to ignore the greatest gift you may ever be offered: the passionate embrace of the Mother. She is going to hound you until She has you, and then She is going to strip you…
“Conspiracy theory is the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you cannot change your own life, it must be that some greater force controls the world.” ― Roger Cohen This presidential election has generated TONS of fun (philosophical) things to think and talk about. Among them is this notion of “rigging” that keeps coming up….
“Here I would point out, as a symptom equally worthy of notice, the ABSENCE OF FEELING which usually accompanies laughter. It seems as though the comic could not produce its disturbing effect unless it fell, so to say, on the surface of a soul that is thoroughly calm and unruffled. Indifference is its natural environment,…
“Libertarianism is perhaps the most toxic mixture of liberalism (ala Hobbes and Locke) and capitalism.” It should not be a huge surprise for anyone who reads this blog to learn that I am not a huge fan of the political philosophy known as libertarianism. One of the things I hate most about libertarianism is it’s…
“[Police:] A term which describes both individual officers and a system, or institution in society that exists only at the split between those who have and those who do not. Historically and currently, the police system has served/serves mostly as a tool for the powerful in racial and class conflict. There have not always been…
“Richard Hill, history professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, explains that New Zealand police were disarmed for routine work in 1886, following the principle of the British police that: “Constables are placed in authority to protect, not to oppress, the public.” For officers to carry guns would not just be unnecessary, he…
“Difference is endless, and so we are endlessly—infinitely—tangled in it.” –Catherine Keller It struck me recently that All Lives Matter, the defiant, pious, racist push-back to the very important Black Lives Matter movement, should also be filed under the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness is one of my favorite Whiteheadian theories;…
“The government is the only power structure that’s even partially accountable to the population, so naturally the business sectors want to make that the enemy–not the corporate system, which is totally unaccountable. After decades of intensive business propaganda, people feel that the government is some kind of enemy and that they have to defend themselves…