It is rare are among humans, but common in relation to our pets.
Category: Emotions
Carl Schmitt on Compassion
I'm on a Schmitt jag. Top o' the Stack.
Pet Love as Idolatry?
Problems of attachment and grief.
Substack latest.
Envy, Jealousy, Schadenfreude
Some distinctions.
Top o' the Stack.
Self-Deprecation
A little self-deprecation is good, but more is not better. Nobody likes the boaster. Take self-deprecation too far, however, and people will have contempt for you.
The Fearful are Easy to Control
Is the sheep your totemic animal? A sheep in a mask? A dose of Emerson may help if it is not too late.
"He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay "Courage")
(I note that the pronoun as it functions in the quoted line has neither an antecedent nor a gender. So while grammatically it is a masculine pronoun, logically it is neither.)
On Reverence
Substack latest.
The Tree and the House
A parable about envy.
Substack latest. Opening:
A man planted a tree to shade his house from the desert sun. The tree, a palo verde, grew like a weed and was soon taller than the house. The house became envious, feeling diminished by the tree’s stature. The house said to the tree: "How dare you outstrip me, you who were once so puny! I towered above you, but you have made me small."
Once More on Envy
His mother wanted him to amount to something. His father was afraid that he might — and make the father look small.
Envy Again
How little you must know about me to envy me!
Would you envy me had you trod my paths and had thereby come to appreciate the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (Hamlet, Act III, Scene I) that found in me their target?
Your envy, an ugly sin and deadly, is bred in ignorance which, if not a sin is nonetheless ugly — and deadly.
Envy
How little you must be to envy me!
Can Rigorous Philosophy be Therapeutic?
Is philosophical analysis relevant to life as she is lived?
Richard Sorabji:
Stoic cognitive therapy consists of a package which is in part a philosophical analysis of what the emotions are and in part a battery of cognitive devices for attacking those aspects of emotion which the philosophical analysis suggests can be attacked. The devices are often not philosophical and are often shared with other schools. But I believe it is wrong to suppose that they are doing all the work. The work is done by the package and the philosophical analysis is an essential part of the package. Admittedly somebody who just wanted to be treated passively as the patient of a Stoic therapist would not have to understand the philosophical analysis. But anyone who wants to be able to deal with the next emotional crisis that comes along and the next needs to learn how to treat themselves and for this the philosophical analysis of emotion is essential. What is under discussion here is the role of philosophical analysis as relevant to life.
I am indebted to Bernard Williams not only for expressing a diametrically opposite view but for discussing it with me both orally and in print.1 His case demands the most careful consideration. His claim . . . is that rigorous philosophy cannot be therapeutic.
Braggadocio, Self-Deprecation, Contempt
Brag and your peers will hate you. A little self-deprecation may win their hearts. Too much will earn their contempt. We learn these things by living.
Righteous Anger
There is righteous anger. But how much of what is called 'righteous anger' is righteousness and how much anger? The righteous know; the merely angry fool themselves.
Infatuation
What saves infatuation from being merely that? Its being a love of God that doesn't understand itself.