People should rethink their ideas about cruelty and open up their eyes; they should finally learn impatience, so that big, fat, presumptuous mistakes like this will stop wandering virtuously and audaciously about. We’d like to believe we Americans are of all people the most humane. We want what is best, which we fervently believe…
Yes, a taste for Nietzsche’s style of thought surely includes admiration for his sardonic manner of expression. To attempt a paraphrase: Let’s move the conversation as far as possible from the subject of morality. Shall we cling to the golden rule, satisfied that this mantra, as often as is brought to mind, is the…
Liberals are misjudged and there is no remedy for that. That cannot be helped. You may wonder how the world appears to the liberal minded. The world is viewed as a changing matrix, an organism-like phenomenon which is perpetually searching a more efficient way, (by trial and error) an improved way of processing of…
A friend’s comment to the post of yesterday inspired the choice of these lines. Here a train of thought describes a point of view of life in a society marked by affluence as well as by the violence of extreme poverty. Systemic exploitation amounts to healthcare you cannot afford, and doing without the benefits…
WE IMMORALISTS! – This world as it concerns US, in which we need to love and be afraid, this almost invisible, inaudible world of subtle command, subtle obedience, a world of the “almost” in every respect, twisted, tricky, barbed, and loving: yes, it is well defended against clumsy spectators and friendly curiosity! We have…
We discussed humor. There was speculation about the role of wry humor, the benefits of the proximity of laughter to our well being. I enjoy the presence of humorous individuals. I think that most do. My formative years were spent among people who in retrospect were humorless. They were moralists, that overweening focus upon…
The uncomfortable, suffocating heat and humidity have moved on. Today is bright with sunlight, and agreeably mild. “So it goes” with the weather and with life. It pays to pay attention to what is on the menu, to the “soup of the day” or to the Duck à l’Orange if it happens as the…
This graphic was featured in a Sunday edition of the New York Times. “Luck” – If you are lucky… Of course the entire point is the unknown of the future, your future and mine. Would you delight to have a long life, winning against the odds, what we mean by luck? I would. My…
Hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, eudamonianism: these are all ways of thinking that measure the value of things according to pleasure and pain, which is to say according to incidental states and trivialities. They are all foreground ways of thinking and naivetes, and nobody who is conscious of both formative powers and an artist’s conscience will…
We men of “historical sense,” we do have our virtues – this cannot be denied. We are unassuming, selfless, modest, brave, full of self-overcoming, full of dedication, very grateful, very patient, very accommodating: – but for all that we are, perhaps, not very “tasteful.” Finally, let us admit to ourselves: what we men of…
