There are, roughly, two kinds of defenses offered of United Airlines’ behavior–in DraggingGate–that have been offered thus far. First, the ‘abide by the terms of the contract’ defense. Second, the ‘just shut up and obey orders, and everything will be allright’ defense. On closer inspection, of course, these two turn out to be instantiations ofContinue reading “The Defenses Of United Airlines’ Behavior Reveal Some Uncomfortable Truths”
Tag Archives: Friedrich Nietzsche
Perfect Strangers: Seeing And Hearing Ourselves
Here is a familiar phenomenon: we hear an audio recording of ourselves and are surprised and perplexed to find out we are listening to a stranger; we are used to hearing our voices from the ‘inside’; but when we hear a recording, we do so from the ‘outside.’ The timbre and tone of our voiceContinue reading “Perfect Strangers: Seeing And Hearing Ourselves”
Flannery O’Connor On Free Will And Integrity
In the ‘Author’s Note to the Second Edition’ in Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor writes: Does one’s integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Unsurprisingly, here we find a provocative interventionContinue reading “Flannery O’Connor On Free Will And Integrity”
Fascism And The Problems With A ‘Glorious Past’
I grew up in India, a land of considerable antiquity with a long and rich history. All around me, there were monuments to this past; sometimes they were physical, tangible ones, like buildings built many years ago, or books that recounted tales of magnificent civilizations and fantastically accomplished cultures with their philosophy, art, music, sculpture.Continue reading “Fascism And The Problems With A ‘Glorious Past’”
Irène Nèmirovsky On The Failure To Recognize Failure
In The Fires of Autumn (Vintage International, New York, 2015, p. 186) Irène Nèmirovsky writes: Mankind can only easily get used to happiness and success. When it comes to failure, human nature puts up insurmountable barriers of hope. The sense of despair has to remove those barriers one by one, and only then does penetrate to theContinue reading “Irène Nèmirovsky On The Failure To Recognize Failure”
Freidrich Hebbel’s ‘Profound Question’
In ‘Notebook 11, February 1817’ from Writings From The Early Notebooks (eds. Raymond Geuss and Alexander Nehamas, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2009, p. 81), Nietzsche cites “a profound question of Friedrich Hebbel” [link added]: If the artist made a picture, knowing that it would last for ever, ButContinue reading “Freidrich Hebbel’s ‘Profound Question’”
Oscar Wilde’s Nietzschean Notes In De Profundis
In ‘Suffering is One Very Long Moment‘–part of a series of essays on prison literature–Max Nelson writes on De Profundis–“a letter written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to “Bosie” (Lord Alfred Douglas)”–and makes note that: Certain passages in De Profundis do seem to credit prison with strengthening and deepening their author’s nature, butContinue reading “Oscar Wilde’s Nietzschean Notes In De Profundis”
A Theological Lesson Via Military History
In Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (J. B Lipincott, New York, 1966, p. 85), Bernard B. Fall describes the build-up which foretold the grim military disaster to unfold at Dien Bien Phu–the lack of adequate defenses and ammunition, the poor tactical location etc–making note, along the way, ofContinue reading “A Theological Lesson Via Military History”
John Nash On Thinking Rationally As Dieting
In A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998, p. 351), Sylvia Nasar writes: Nash has compared rationality to dieting, implying a constant, conscious struggle. It is a matter of policing one’s thoughts, he said, trying to recognize paranoid ideas and rejecting them, justContinue reading “John Nash On Thinking Rationally As Dieting”
F. O. Matthiessen On ‘The Value Of The Tragic Writer’
In The Achievement of T. S. Eliot (Oxford University Press, New York, p. 107), F. O. Matthiessen writes: The value of the tragic writer has always lain in the uncompromising honesty with which he has cut through appearances to face the real conditions of man’s lot, in his refusal to be deceived by an easy answer, inContinue reading “F. O. Matthiessen On ‘The Value Of The Tragic Writer’”
Samir Chopra 