Cogitations

Survival is Betrayal is Fidelity

2012-02-12T15:58:00.000-05:00

Slavoj Zizek In his book Living in the End Times, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek - "the most dangerous philosopher in the West" according to Adam Kirsch of The New Republic - aims to confront the Western individual with the near-apocalyptic state of her society and thereby involve her in the events that will shape her destiny, and those of her children. While Zizek's overall thesis is

Cynicism on the Magic Mountain

2011-07-17T17:49:00.001-04:00

"...early and repeated contacts with death give rise to a basic mind-set against the cruelties and crudities of life as it is thoughtlessly lived out in the world. Or let us say, it makes one aware of, and sensitive to its cynicism." - Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Resolute Silence: Living the Good

2011-05-24T22:35:00.001-04:00

Ludwig Wittgenstein summed up the results of his investigation in the seminal work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus thus: "Whatever can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." While the statement appears to support a sort of blind positivism, where only facts have meaning, and values are nonsense, to interpret Wittgenstein's statement in

Levels of Allegory

2011-05-18T21:48:00.001-04:00

'[Now] there were lots of places that you couldn't just pass through like a breeze. No, there was no point in dreaming about it, in this new world where there wouldn't be anything like it anymore - in this world each step required an improbable effort and searing pain. The old days were long gone. The magical, wonderful world was long dead. It didn't exist anymore. And there was no point in

Living in Search of God

2011-04-03T17:14:00.002-04:00

"In summing up, then, it may be said that nearly all the great social institutions have been born in religion". - Emile Durkheim I have recently come to a realization that I should probably change the indication of my religious views on Facebook from 'Agnostic' to 'Living towards them'. What I mean by that is that, as years go by, it is becoming more and more important to me to