“Bourgeois men succeeded in challenging aristocrats only when they had already received some formal recognition of status, either via legal equality or admission to some institution (eg, officer corps, universities) on an equal footing with aristocrats. Official recognition of equality is what enabled them to defend their equal status, by duel, in the broader social…
Category
Thoughts
And Distribution Was Made Unto Everyone According to Their Need
““Rich countries aren’t developing poor countries; poor countries are effectively developing rich countries — and they have been since the late 15th century,” argues Hickel…In the book it is laid bare for all to see that underdevelopment in the Global South is not a natural condition, but a consequence of the way Western powers have…
The Corporealness of God
“In this one image of the world as God’s body, we are invited to see the creator in the creation, the source of all existence in and through what is bodied forth from that source.” –Sally McFague Below is a comment I left on a thread in the radical theology fb group (a very good…
Livers Don’t Have Unconscious Thoughts: Nick Chater, Flat Mind Theory & No Self
“…we can no more bring to consciousness the operation of our brain than we can bring to consciousness other aspects of our own biology. We can invent stories about what the liver is trying to achieve, speak as if the immune system is confused by tissues from our own bodies, or talk of genes being…
The Unreal Dichotomy of “The Individual” Versus “The Society”
“The ontology of this Marxian framework treats society as a complex of social relations among social individuals. This primacy of relations enables Marxian thought to avoid the unreal dichotomy of “the individual” versus “the society.” There are no real individuals standing outside of and prior to the relational nexus: each becomes a specific individual in…
Fallibility, Finitude, and Feeling Ashamed to Be Human
“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.” – Salvador Dali I know lots of people who have made relatively honest and minor mistakes at their workplace and have then been disciplined for it. These sort of scenarios always get me thinking about human nature and how, when we talk about mistakes, excellence,…
Storing Treasures on Earth: Immigration and Protecting What’s “Ours”
“Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country…” – Donald Trump, June 19, 2018 … ““Infest” is the essential, and new, word here…It drives full-throttle toward the dehumanizatioour n of immigrants, setting aside legality in favor…
Westworld, Theory of Mind, and Moral “Code” (#Spoilers)
“I look at you, and what I see is pathetic. We ain’t nothin’ alike. You’re just a child.” –Teddy speaking to Craddock, Westworld Season 2 ep. 3 I wrote a fb post recently expressing some thoughts on Westorld Season 2 after watching ep. 4. My friend Kev and I had a great chat and ended…
Regular Tendencies Settled Into (Original Poem)
Regular Tendencies Settled Into I tell myself to think of something else and find that I’m back there with you, alone, by the window talking to the wind. A lonely and anxious fear. Tightness that I would like to untie, but the fretful anguish arrives; natal homing, not unlike a salmon riding on the back…
Thoughts on Human Nature, Essentialism, and Confucianism
“In light of this, we think that the picture emerging from evolutionary and developmental biology is – contrary to the widespread opinion among contemporary philosophers – one that very much supports the notion of human nature, just not an essentialist one. Human nature is best conceived of as a cluster of homeostatic properties, ie of…