…but someone with an uncommon eye for the overall danger that “humanity” itself will degenerate, someone like us, who has recognized the outrageous contingency that has been playing games with the future of humanity so far – games in which no hand and not even a “finger of God” has taken part! – someone…
…a new type of philosopher and commander will be needed for this someday, and whatever hidden, dreadful, or benevolent spirits have existed on earth will pale into insignificance beside the image of this type. The image of such leaders hovers before our eyes: – may I say this out loud, you free spirits? The…
Finally, as for the common people, the great majority, who exist and are only allowed to exist to serve and to be of general utility, religion gives them an invaluable sense of contentment with their situation and type; it puts their hearts greatly at ease, it glorifies their obedience, it gives them (and those…
Another magnificent day, a morning all sunshine. I spoke with a friend about preparing for the growing season. He grows dahlias, and I grow vegetables. Nature is one of the bonds between us. Another bond, we see one another almost daily at the Geneva Starbucks. Perhaps both of us prefers dark roast coffee? Last…
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,…
