Philosophy as a Way of Life

  • Silent road, cloudless mind

    Saturday, I went to visit my mother at the nursing home in Abilene, TX. Almost 91, she has become much less active, sometimes sleeping most of the day. I brought with me Bashō-Sensei’s beautiful haibun, The Narrow road to the… Continue reading

    Silent road, cloudless mind
  • Wonder of dawn

    The shared reason of the day says, “See, the sun comes up in the east as the earth stands still.” Or maybe, “See, the earth turns on its axis as it swings around the sun.” Yet neither truly responds to… Continue reading

    Wonder of dawn
  • On Bullshit Jobs – RSA

    According to a 2015 YouGov poll, 37% of the UK population believe their job makes no meaningful contribution to the world. And despite the time-saving advances promised by technology, we’re now working longer hours than ever. How has this situation… Continue reading

    On Bullshit Jobs – RSA
  • Team Human – RSA

    Influential thinker Douglas Rushkoff argues that there is an anti-human agenda embedded in our markets and technologies, which has turned them from means of human connection into ones of isolation and repression. Our corporations and the culture they create glorify… Continue reading

    Team Human – RSA
  • Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

    Nice addition to the list of fifteen books I posted yesterday. In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. Free… Continue reading

    Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
  • When anything goes, no one is safe

    “A new and chilling normal is coming into view,” Miliband concluded. “Civilians seen as fair game for armed combatants, humanitarians seen as an impediment to military tactics and therefore unfortunate but expendable collateral, and investigations of and accountability for war… Continue reading

    When anything goes, no one is safe
  • 15 History Books You Didn’t Get Assigned In School But Definitely Need To Read

    They say that history is written by the victors, but what happens when those victors decide to leave the important details out? All too often, history texts and academic courses leave out the narratives of indigenous Americans, immigrants, forced and… Continue reading

    15 History Books You Didn’t Get Assigned In School But Definitely Need To Read
  • My teaching philosophy

    This is really the first assignment I give for reading in all of my courses. It is to let students know why I believe they should make a place for philosophizing throughout their life. I have taken to sending this… Continue reading

    My teaching philosophy
  • AOC visits CBP concentration camp

    I am not in any way outraged or even slightly surprised by the kinds of things that folx are seeing in these camps. I am not outraged or even slightly surprised because THIS IS NOT ALL THAT NEW. This is… Continue reading

    AOC visits CBP concentration camp
  • 2019 — Summer Course

    Here you will find the readings for my 2019 Summer II course. Check back frequently for updates. Back to Call Me Maggie homepage Have the assigned readings completed by the time you get to class. The first part of class… Continue reading

    2019 — Summer Course
  • Warp and woof

    Late June after the solstice is the time when I lose sight of writing and reading. Usually there is a burst of both just after school is out—that is how conditioned I am by the school year at the age… Continue reading

    Warp and woof
  • Concentration Camp Czar Quits

    Trump’s Border “Protection” chief–John “I Love To Make Foreign Children Suffer” Sanders–has resigned from his position. Vice News reports that not long after attorneys working for refugees and migrants found kids separated from parents by Custom and Border Patrol in… Continue reading

    Concentration Camp Czar Quits
  • The Corporate Capture of Social Change

    Rather than discussing social change as being rooted in rights, justice and systemic reform, the new corporate conception of social change sees inequality, climate change and poverty as a set of technical problems with market solutions. For these people fixing… Continue reading

    The Corporate Capture of Social Change
  • Neoliberalism promotes addiction

    We live in a sociocultural situation that maximizes alienation at every turn. It’s the reason that even when most folx are “celebrating” in social spaces like bars, they mostly experience “being together alone.” This is why I have come to… Continue reading

    Neoliberalism promotes addiction
  • Queering and Wyrding

    ‘Q’ then, will never be a coherent letter tacked as a bridge on some list of identities. The past decade shows the poverty or ruin of every attempt to do so. We’ve said already that these words are magic. We… Continue reading

    Queering and Wyrding
  • The Hierophant: There is more-so than the just-so

    The most intriguing nuances of experience cannot be wholly captured by words. Positive claims within consciousness-as-such can only apprehend so-much of our being-world as an encompassing phenomenon (Jaspers 1970b: 18-22). We have known this since the very beginning of recorded… Continue reading

    The Hierophant: There is more-so than the just-so
  • A long tradition… Black Women leading a charge for justice with little or no help

    Why has it taken more than 20 years and testimony by about 50 accusers to get to this moment [R. Kelly finally charged for all of his sexual abuses]? Because we live in a country where a history of racism… Continue reading

    A long tradition… Black Women leading a charge for justice with little or no help
  • Mistaken Identity by Asad Haider | Books | The Guardian

    Identity politics finds critics everywhere. Throw a rock at a rack of newspapers and you’ll probably hit an editorial condemning it. Conservatives such as Republican House speaker Paul Ryan blame it for polarisation, while liberals like the Columbia University historian… Continue reading

    Mistaken Identity by Asad Haider | Books | The Guardian