Once one has worked through
and been suitably impressed
by Derrida’s perceptive and witty
analysis of Nietzsche’s style,
one feels, at the end
of all the urbanity,
an empty longing
amounting to a hunger,
a longing for the sense of difficulty
and risk and practical urgency
that are inseparable
from Zarathustra’s dance…..

Nietzsche’s work
is profoundly critical
of existing ethical theory, clearly;
but it is,
a response to the original Socratic question,
“How should one live?”

Derrida does not touch
on that question.
After reading Derrida,
and not Derrida alone,
I feel a certain hunger for blood;
for, that is, writing about literature
that talks of human lives
and choices as if
they matter
to us all.

— excerpt Loves Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature by Martha Nussbaum p. 171

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We humans are not all alike.  We humans are more alike than we think.

Both of these propositions are true statements referring to the psyche, the internal dialog that persists within, from the time each begins to master language, until our consciousness fades, on our dying day.  Culture and circumstance shape us.  The ways, and sensibilities of our tribe, our birth family; and the physical circumstances of the environment of our growing up years prepare the default, the status quo of my place and time.

A few minutes ago a friend who joined me at Starbucks, commented that the decor of the room, the wood grained table tops, the gray tones of the walls, and the austere straight-lined design of wall decor — are reminiscent of a Nordic aesthetic.  He commented that it is “cold.”  Reno comes from an Italian family.  He’d prefer a Mediterranean aesthetic.

Differences are differences, real aspects of who we are.  At the same time, language, makes it possible to examine our differences.  Dialog with a charitable, attitude of openness allows us to broaden our self understanding, to appreciate the value of what we once thought to be so alien, so uncomfortable.

Philosophy is not a parlor game.  Philosophy matters.