At the outset of On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche reports that his polemical book of pseudo-history, pseudo-anthropology, and pseudo-psychology is an exercise in knowing ourselves. We cannot simply investigate morality and Christianity, as if these were topics we could entertain with . . . . Continue Reading »
Sooner or later, every teacher hears the same old joke about the philosophy student and his dad. The dad asks, “Son, what are you going to do with that goofy degree?” And the son says, “I’m going to open a philosophy shop and make big money selling ideas.” I smile every time I hear it, . . . . Continue Reading »
Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900) was the nineteenth century’s most penetrating writer on music, as he was on much else, and he was also a gifted . . . . Continue Reading »
In the months before his final descent into madness, Friedrich Nietzsche made the following declaration and prediction . . . . . . Continue Reading »
Those who were once called atheists are now the most reliable defenders not of the gods but of the good reasons for this regime of ordered liberty. Such people are the best citizens not despite but because their loyalty to the civitas is qualified by a higher loyalty. . . . . Continue Reading »
Poor Time. Twenty-four years ago this month, the magazine brought us its Nietzschean fears with its famous red-on-black cover, “Is God Dead?” More recently, apparently, the agnostic editors of Time experienced a crisis of faith over the secular substitute for God, and thus presented the . . . . Continue Reading »
Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Ageby modris ecksteinshoughton mifflin (a peter davison book), 396 pages, $24.95 Modris Eksteins’ disturbing and fascinating book ranges between the Sergei Diaghilev-managed opening night performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring . . . . Continue Reading »
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