When a man [woman] chooses himself [or herself], he chooses for all men. Of all the actions a man may take in order to create himself as he wills to be, there is not one which is not creative, of an image of man such as he believes he ought to be. Existence precedes…
Moral choiceis comparable to the construction of a work of art. As there are no aesthetic values apriori,there are values which will appearin due course in the coherence of the picture— in the relation between the will to create and the finished work. One cannot judge a painting until it is done.likewise with morality.In…
The story of the individual is embedded in a larger set of stories. We play our part in an ensemble cast. How do we imagine a successful strategy for addressing the tension between the needs of the individual and the problems of satisfying those needs within the social, economic and natural environment? We must…
Real animals and plants separated from their spiritual truth slowly rejoin the empty objectivity of tools, the mortal body is gradually assimilated to the mass of things. Insofar as it is spirit, the human reality is holy, but it is profane insofar as it is real. Animals, plants, tools, and other controllable things form…
Speaker no. 1 – Won’t you just cut it out!? Speaker no. 2 – I can’t. I cannot help myself. At every moment, at every opportunity the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of the…
Yesterday I thought about our proclivity to desire something for nothing. The simple minded way of putting it: free is good. If not entirely free, so minimal in cost, that no thought need be given to “what it is going to cost me.” I am no exception to this rule… Except, the adult version…
…the contradictionof a style of living whichcultivates sincerityand is at the same timea fraud.There is truth only in an existencewhich feels its acts asirrevocably necessary. There exists today no politician who feelsthe inevitableness of his policy,the more extreme his attitudes, the more frivolous,the less inspired by destiny they are. The only life with its…
In truth a nation is never formed. …the nation is always either in the making, or in the unmaking. It is either winning adherents, or losing them, according as the State does or does not represent at a given time. a vital enterprise. Excerpt The Revolt of the Masses by José Ortega y Gasset…
The State begins when groups naturally divided find themselves obliged to live in common. This obligation is not of brute force, but implies an impelling purpose, a common task which is set before the dispersed groups. Before all the State is a plan of action and a program of collaboration. The men [and women]…
Human life, by its very nature, has to be dedicated to something, an enterprise glorious or humble, a destiny illustrious or trivial. …in these years we are witnessing the gigantic spectacle of innumerable human lives wandering about lost in their own labyrinths… All imperatives, all commands, are in a state of suspension. Given over…
