Tag: cynicism

Epictetus, in an eighteenth-century English artist’s imagining.

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Socrates was not in prison since he was there of his own free will. — Epictetus

I’m free.
And freedom tastes of reality.
— The Who

We should talk about slavery. Goodness knows, it’s not a subject we hear talked about much these days. That’s my dose of irony, now for some history. If you were at school or college today in the West, you would know that no slavery existed until a man called Jim Crow had his people — probably the Ku Klux Klan, or Donald Trump’s ancestors — sail to Africa, cast black people into chains, and then bring them back to America to pick cotton and be lynched. (more…)

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In my last article, I wrote on the question of whether politics should be abandoned or not. My conclusion was that no, it should not be. However, those who wish to improve themselves and those in their immediate vicinity should also be heeded lest we go down the all-too-common, unproductive path of browsing Telegram and Discord all day and foolishly calling it “political activism,” as so many keyboard warriors do today. (more…)

Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife shortly before their televised execution on December 25, 1989.

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“A regime built on lies always ends in collapse.” — Z-Man, “An Empire of Lies”

Solipsism: a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing. (more…)

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The singer Édith Piaf famously, and throatily, regretted nothing about anything. But the poet John Betjeman wished that he’d had more sex. And the economist John Maynard Keynes that he’d drunk more champagne. Me? I regret two things much more important than recreational sex or champagne. (more…)

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For years now, readers have been urging me to review Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), which adapts Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel of the same name. I have resisted, because although A Clockwork Orange is often hailed as a classic, I thought it was dumb, distasteful, and highly overrated, so I didn’t want to watch it again. But I had first watched it decades ago. (more…)

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Six black people have been found dead, hanging from trees, during the month of June so far. They were all ruled as suicides by local police. Black people refuse to believe that’s true, of course. The circumstances of these deaths too closely resemble the lynchings of yesteryear, right down to the surrounding social turmoil and the highly public spectacle of the corpses. (more…)

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Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, Network (1976) is a sardonic, dark-comic satire of America at the very moment that its trajectory of decline became apparent (to perceptive eyes, at least).

Network has an outstanding script and incandescent performances, which were duly recognized. Chayefsky won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. Peter Finch won the Oscar for Best Actor (more…)

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In the fall of 2000, I taught an adult education class entitled Philosophy on Film, (more…)

John William Waterhouse, Diogenes (1882)

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Translated by Guillaume Durocher

One cannot know what a man must lose to have the courage to defy all conventions; one cannot know what Diogenes lost to become the man who allowed himself to do everything, who turned his most intimate thoughts into acts of a supernatural insolence, as would a god of knowledge, at once libidinous and pure. No one was more frank; an extreme case of sincerity and lucidity, as well as an example of what we could be if education and hypocrisy did not restrain our desires and actions.

(more…)

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We are all faced with the challenge of speaking, and living, truths which are felt to be offensive by a great many of our countrymen, not to mention the powers that be. This is not a new problem. By definition, the natural diversity of men means that knowledge of the truth is highly unequally distributed and those who know most about the truth are necessarily a tiny minority. This minority must alone face the prejudices and ignorance of the masses and the violence of the state. (more…)

John William Waterhouse, Diogenes (detail), 1882

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Trans. Guillaume Durocher

Translator’s Note:

The following is drawn from Pierre Hadot, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique ? (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), pp. 170-74. The title is editorial.

Scholars still debate whether Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates, was the founder of the Cynic movement. (more…)

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Taylor Swift’s latest album, reputation, came out on November 10th. She has become an iconic figure for the Alt Right in recent years, so a review seems appropriate. We must tread lightly because Ms. Swift has recently been flashing her litigious claws (clause?). (more…)