-
Becoming the Vessel | The Ptero Card
An informative piece from Ptero9 that reminds me how much philosophizing requires going to the margins or as Jaspers would call it, the boundary situations, where we engage in the loving struggle with others who are also attempting self-actualization. So, how do we accept being in the margins, enough to…
-
Military Metaphysics: How Militarism Mangles the Mind
Homer in “The Iliad” showed his understanding of war. His heroes are not pleasant men. They are vain, imperial, filled with rage and violent. And Homer’s central character in “The Odyssey,” Odysseus, in his journey home from war must learn to shed his “hero’s heart,” to strip from himself the…
-
Afternoon Memo 20140202
My MEMO Status update on FB: Some caricature metaphysics as the most meaningless of abstractions: e.g. pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Such examples work precisely to say that the “beyond” trumps the now/here for a metaphysician. But really, the true offense arises from…
-
Night Vigil 20140201
Night Vigil has been occupied with the issue of anthropocentrism. Of course anthropo– means human and –centric means center. So the term means to place humankind at the center of everything. Knowing how -centric got the usage, however, is very enlightening. Arising through French from a Latin usage, the centrum…
-
It Is Expensive to Be Poor – Barbara Ehrenreich – The Atlantic
The Great Recession should have put the victim-blaming theory of poverty to rest. In the space of only a few months, millions of people entered the ranks of the officially poor—not only laid-off blue-collar workers, but also downsized tech workers, managers, lawyers, and other once-comfortable professionals. No one could accuse…
-
Capitalism vs. Democracy – NYTimes.com
Thomas Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” described by one French newspaper as a “a political and theoretical bulldozer,” defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism.Piketty, a professor at the Paris School of Economics, does not stop…
-
body atlas
Originally posted on coromandal: Happiness and depression are felt all over the body, while anger and pride only in the chest and head. These are images from research on emotion response by a group of scientists from Finland. The researchers used stimuli – words, images, stories – to provoke emotion and…
-
Marsilio Ficino
Probably one of the least known yet most influential philosophers in the last 1000 years. Another way to understand Ficino and his academy is to examine the various ways he uses the word “academy” and its variants. What one finds is that Plato’s dialogues themselves could be referred to as…
-
Keeping Vigil
I call the time between first and second sleep the Night Vigil, following the old monastic traditions. For me, Night Vigil begins with an examination of conscience: Oh thou Encompassing, thou All, thou One. How can I give myself over to thee without examining who I was this day? Open…
-
Ecstasy
“Blessed and holy, I would say, is he to whom it has been given to experience such a thing in this mortal life at rare intervals or even once; and this suddenly and scarcely for the space of a single moment. In a certain manner to lose yourself as though…
-
Han Shan 36
Lust, or love; some grasp at it for happiness, but only calamity dwells within the mortal shell, and thus they march through fire toward a bright mirage, to find all love inconstant; the dying body . . . A real man’s one ambition is to be as straight as steel.…
-
Athletics and the Political Ambitions of Young Adults » Sociological Images
The authors suggest that the mediating factor is “an opportunity to develop… a competitive spirit.” Sports, they argue, may build or reinforce the tendency to find pleasure in competition, which may make politics more appealing. via Athletics and the Political Ambitions of Young Adults » Sociological Images.
-
planes, trains and automobiles
Originally posted on betacity: From the Regional Plan Association, more evidence all is not what it seems: our governments subsidize all forms of transportation, including cars – (there go our bragging rights): A common theme of U.S. political dialogue is that while highways are sustained by tolls and gas taxes,…
-
hither and yon
Originally posted on betacity: Cars are inviolably and inextricably linked to freedom; and, with no less conviction, to solvency. Of course they are: you can hop in anytime and go anywhere you want when you have a car. You can take the top down to let the sun on your…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
