We degrade ourselves and yet expect the source of all elevation to visit and guide us?
Category: Aphorisms and Observations
‘Not So Much’
Do I like the increasing usage of this phrase? Not so much.
Difficulties
Many difficulties are to be subdued where alone they reside: in your own head.
Death and Time
Death is as certain as the passage of time — and as real. But how real is that?
Relatives
Some want to stay in touch, not on the basis of what one actually and presently is, but on the basis of what one was or was imagined by them to be. And so I rarely visit the homes of my relatives. For, as Emerson brilliantly quips in a related connection, "I do not want to be alone."
Identity and Diversity
It is curious that the partisans of the politics of identity should make such a fuss about diversity.
The Philosopher and the Conservative
One cannot be a philosopher without believing in the power of reason. But one cannot be a conservative without doubting its power to order our affairs and ameliorate our condition.
Equally, one cannot be a philosopher without doubting — doubt being the engine of inquiry — and one cannot be a conservative without believing, that is, without accepting as true much that one cannot prove.
To live well we must somehow tread a razor's edge between unexamined belief and beliefless examination.
Living to Eat
One who lives to eat is almost as ridiculous as one who drives a car to pump gas into its tank. In both cases a vehicle; in both cases fuel; in both cases means-end confusion.
If the Dead and the Undocumented Voted Conservative . . .
. . . liberals would be screaming for voter ID.
Engagement with Equanimity
Can you engage with the political while retaining peace of mind? If not, avoid politics.
The monkish virtues are easy to cultivate and practice in the monastery. The trick, however, is to practice them in the world — where they are needed.
On Living Too Long
Old age for some is a sort of afterlife in a foreign country. One has lived beyond one's own time and now finds oneself among strangers.
Fruits of Civilization
One of the fruits of civilization is that it allows some of us to reflect upon civilization and its fruits — and its discontents.
The Space of Scholars
The space of scholars is made safe by the blood of warriors.
Lesser Lights
The following aphorism floated before my mind as I was reading Paul Roubiczek, Across the Abyss:
Lesser lights, too, provide illumination. And they, rather than the fixed stars in our cultural firmament, are perhaps better exemplars for us — who are lesser lights.
All Roads Lead to Rome
Under protracted consideration every philosophical question inevitably raises questions about the nature, methods, and goals of philosophy. All philosophical roads lead to metaphilosophical Rome. Not that we will find in Rome what we could not find on the way there.