I read a passage from Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human about justice. The words stayed with me as if barbed. Nietzsche refers to a passage written by Thucydides (431 BC), his account of the war between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides recounts a negotiation between Athenian ambassadors and representatives of Melos, a island community in…
For in the realm of thought, power and fame are hard to maintain if erected on the basis of error or lies; the feeling that such a building could at some time or other fall down is humiliating to the self-conceit of its architect; he is ashamed of the fragility of his material and,…
…waking man per se is only clear about his being awake through the rigid and orderly woof of ideas, and it is for this very reason that he sometimes comes to believe that he was dreaming when the woof of his ideas has for a moment been torn by Art. Pascal is quite right,…
I am reading an article from Foreign Affairs sent to me by a friend: If Mao Had Come to Washington by Barbara W. Tuchman. In 1945 Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai requested a meeting with President Roosevelt, in hopes of convincing him that the Communists were a worthy ally, and that the Communist Party…
So the hand moves forward, the tragedy begins… That describes my sense of reality after reading the account of the Republican debate last night. I did not watch. I was tempted by shear voyeurism, but managed to resist my inclination. The eight Republican candidates running for second place, far behind the polling numbers of…
So, is this the final act, a horizon which we did not see because our eyes did not reach that far? I am referring to the experiment of America, that we thought was “noble,” a special nation, as Madeleine Albright said in 1998, — the Indispensable Nation. A city shining, set on a hill,…
Once I was tempted to think that candidates for office are bloviating buffoons, vacuous minded, baby kissers, etc. etc. I no longer think such a candidate for office is harmless. Who is not dismayed by the condition of the country; we are all bit performers in a comedy of societal dysfunction. It is unclear…
Knowledge of misery — The emergence of pessimistic philosophies is by no means a sign of great and terrible misery. No. these question marks about the value of all life are put up in ages in which the refinement and alleviation of existence make even the inevitable mosquito bites of the soul and the…
In this morning’s Japan Times: Japan insurer to offer policy against bullying by Karin Kaneko * Staff writer * Apr 5, 2023 What if your child is bullied at school or online? It’s something every parent fears and while financial losses are likely not their first concern, a new insurance policy to be made…
Sometimes I have no idea what to write. In time an idea develops… “This” piece of writing “sets my hair on fire.” There’s no need for anything of my own but to share this with you. An infantryman’s least favorite weather is a temperature of 35 degrees Fahrenheit and pouring rain, when the trench…
