Dancing to Joy Division

Self conquest is the greatest of victories ~ Plato

Dancing to Joy Division

Self conquest is the greatest of victories ~ Plato

Category: Quotes

Anticipatory Obedience

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. Perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not at first have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another. In 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the SS took the initiative.

When Is Life Grievable?

[Yet] precisely because each body finds itself potentially threatened by others who are, by definition, precarious as well, forms of domination follow. This standard Hegelian point takes on specific meanings under contemporary conditions of war: the shared condition of precariousness leads not to reciprocal recognition, but to a specific exploitation of targeted populations, of lives.

Collective thinking is short lived

“Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?” I ask. “Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this.

Silence

Our century has made a religion of communication, enshrining the idea that we ought to be constantly on tap, endlessly engaged in some or other form of exchanging information and perpetually contributing our due quotient to the sum of nonstop chatter – as if communicating with each other were a moral good, and not merely.

The Value of Philosophy

Having now come to the of our brief and very incomplete review of the problems of philosophy, it will be well to consider, in conclusion, what is the value of philosophy and why it ought to be studied. It is the more necessary to consider this question, in view of the fact that many men,.

The Stoics

The Stoics saw the world as a single great community in which all men are brothers, ruled by a supreme providence which could be spoken of, almost according to choice or context, under a variety of names or descriptions including the divine reason, creative reason, nature, the spirit or purpose of the universe, destiny, a.

Are we passing down our cultural wealth?

This student came to me, he said, “I’m leaving.” He was in one of my more advanced classes, I think it was ‘theory of action’ – if you want anything abstract then it’s theory of action. We were having a great time in class, it was fascinating, although totally irrelevant, and he came to me.

To Desire Oblivion

What is the meaning of our existence, if it is not that in our own selves that desire for truth has come to it; own consciousness as a problem? . . . In attaining self-consciousness, the desire for truth will undoubtedly destroy morality; this is that great hundred-act play that is reserved for the next.

The Trickster and the Unconscious

Man’s worst sin is unconsciousness, but it is indulged in with the greatest piety even by those who should serve mankind as teachers and examples. When shall we stop taking man for granted in this barbarous manner and in all seriousness seek ways and means to exorcize him, to rescue him from possession and unconsciousness,.

Society of the (Economic) Spectacle

The spectacle is the other side of money: it is the general abstract equivalent of all commodities. Money dominated society as the representation of general equivalence, namely, of the exchangeability of different goods whose uses could not be compared. The spectacle is the developed modern complement of money where the totality of the commodity world.