“We will make philosophy dangerous, change the notion of it, we teach a philosophy that is dangerous to life; how can we serve it better? An idea is much more valuable to humanity when it is more costly. If no one hesitates to sacrifice themselves for the idea of ‘God,’ ‘Country,’ ‘Freedom,’ if all…
Morning, — is not the word poetic? A one word poem that you can say over and over quietly, and feel your mood elevate in response. Dawn with rising sun, is portent of life, a call and response promise of “give and take” between the interior “self” and the exterior “world.” What is meant…
Iconic denotation is only syntagm, associates elements without any system: The discontinuous connotators are connected, actualized, ‘spoken’ through the syntagm of the denotation, the discontinuous world of symbols plunges into the story of the denoted scene, as though into a lustral bath of innocence. -excerpt, Rhetoric of the Image, by Roland…
The jukebox makes listening to music a highly enjoyable visual, acoustic and tactile experience. The listening is, however, very complicated and time-intensive. As my jukebox is not in constant use, it first has to be plugged in. It takes some time for the valves to warm up. After inserting the coins, I carefully press…
We live in a time without consecration… Hypercommunication, the noise of communication, desecrates the world, profanes it. Stillness produces nothing. Capitalism therefore dislikes stillness. Information capitalism produces the compulsion of communication. Stillness sharpens our sense for the higher order, which, however, need not be an order of rule or power. Stillness can be extremely…
One of his [Heidegger’s] lectures on Aristotle begins thus: ‘Aristotle was born, worked, and died.’ Thinking is work. Later, Heidegger called thinking handwork: ‘Perhaps thinking, too, is just something like building a cabinet [Schrein]. At any rate, it is handwork. The hand makes thinking a decidedly analogue process. –excerpt, Non-things by Byung-chul Han, p….
Humans are intimate beings [Nahwesen]. Intimacy, however, is not the same as a lack of distance. Distance is a part of it. Nearness and distance belong together. The human being is thus simultaneously a being of nearness and a being of distance. That is why Kafka says that we can hold someone who is…
In ourselves human existence is nothing but shouts, a cruel spasm, a giggling fit where agreement is born from a consciousness which is at last shared between the impenetrability of ourselves and that of others. — excerpt Literature and Evil, Genet, by Georges Bataille, p. 170 …all our yesterdays have lighted fools…
I’ve not concealed my love for Rock N Roll, that music of the people, admittedly a cultural feature of my generation. Nietzsche said that life would hardly be worth living without music. “Without music, life would be a mistake.. I would only believe in a God who knew how to dance.” This song fills…
All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called “Celts,” in our language “Gauls,” the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. – excerpt The Gallic War by Julius Caesar (written in 53 BCE),…
