The final gathering for 2019 for our philosophy group took place last night at Taste of Paris in Mundelein. The surprise, unforeseen was that half again as many showed up than had sent me their RSVP of their intentions. A sign that the life of the mind, the tactile experience of exchanging ideas, is…
There is nothing arrogant about mentioning ordinary people’s material concerns: the poor have the right to do it, and to talk about a readiness for great sacrifices, or suffering ‘whatever the price‘, is as a rule the ideology of the privileged, who are quite content to let the people suffer for them. So do…
We have to accept that we live on a ‘Spaceship Earth’ responsible and accountable for its conditions. Earth is no longer the impenetrable background/horizon of our productive activities. It emerges as another finite object that we can inadvertently destroy or transform to make it livable. This means that the very moment we become powerful…
It is my turn. Having read and discussed a number of paragraphs submitted by readers of Philosophy Now Magazine my appreciation grows for the effort put forth by these readers to formulate their ideas on a philosophically interesting question. The variety of approaches is stimulating, a reminder of the suppleness of our minds. No…
Seated in Starbucks this morning, marveling at the blue sky outside my window. Sunlight streams into the room whenever someone opens the front door entering or departing. I have more leaves to rake from the grass, and I am thankful to have yet another opportunity before the frost comes. The frost will come hard…
We are on the cusp of the holidays. Thanksgiving comes first, then Christmas, and as an after thought, New Years. Thanksgiving is a harvest festival with a focus upon bonds between family and friends. Christmas is complicated. There’s the commercial dimension, which already has emerged a week before Thanksgiving, and there is the religious…
Starbucks is a hubbub of background voices, like the breaking of waves on a sandy lake shore. Interlaced with indistinct conversations is the voice of a smooth jazz singer in the background. All this serves as sonic context for some reading and writing. Do we not read and write for ourselves with others? What…
Theodor Adorno was no fan of pop culture. He thought it was a guilty pleasure. Hardly. Pleasure contaminated by guilt, a cold glass of milk on a hot summer day, with a gnat floating on the surface…. That’s the picture I get. Regret, a price is to be paid as life unfolds. Guilt is…
What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a new bank? — Bertholdt Brecht What is the brutality of Trump’s racist and sexist outbursts compared to the brutality and violence of today’s global capitalism? — Slavoj Zizek
We join ourselves to the living world by the artifacts of art and science – by made things. We are always going to be at least somewhat at fault, because we are ignorant, fallible and small. The living world is larger and more complex than our works. — Wendell Berry I am an advocate…
