Gesellschaft – Page 8 – Writer Between Worlds

Child’s play

A boy drags an empty bag through the sand. He’s tied it at the end of a rope.The wind blows into it, swelling it, ruffling it,making it float and thennearly ripping it out of his hand. The bag is as transparent and light as this boy’s soul.Boy, breath, wind blowing, soul… Later, when it’s full…
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Quote of the day

“Education, in the sense in which I mean it, may be defined as the formation, by means of instruction, of certain mental habits and a certain outlook on life and the world. (…) The search for an outside meaning that can compel an inner response must always be disappointed: all “meaning” must be at bottom…
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Quote of the day

“The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda demonstrates one of the chief characteristics of modern masses. They do not believe in anything visible, in the reality of their own experience; they do not trust their eyes and ears but only their imaginations, which may be caught by anything that is at once universal an consistent…
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Epidemiology

One epidemic calls forth anotherand one infectious protein spawnsinfectious thoughts.Mental representations spreading like viruses.Unchecked. Alert! Long lines before inoculation centers.Demand for fiction is high.Trust has been thrown off-kilter.Too little truth producedto fight this lethal disease. No medicine as yet against the fever ofconviction. Maintain a safe distanceand epistemological hygiene.Refrain from visiting the specters of panic.To…
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Quote of the day

“In itself, every idea is neutral, or should be; but man animates ideas, projects his flames and flaws into them; impure, transformed into beliefs, ideas take their place in time, take shape as events: the trajectory is complete, from logic to epilepsy . . . whence the birth of ideologies, doctrines, deadly games. Idolaters by instinct,…
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Inarticulate

So little left to express. Spleen? Acedia? The signifiers have lost their signifieds and are straying. Ideas, heavy as rock, sink to the bottom of rivers waiting to be swept away by a sudden flood of effervescence or settle, with the mud, along the banks of dam lakes and rot. Occasionally, some debris resurfaces –…
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Quote of the day

“Understanding a people’s culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity. (…) It renders them accessible: setting them in the frame of their own banalities, it dissolves their opacity.” Clifford Geertz – The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books Classics)
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Words of wisdom, cautionary words

On creativity: “If too few opportunities for curiosity are available, if too many obstacles are placed in the way of risk and exploration, the motivation to engage in creative behavior is easily extinguished. (…) So, if the next generation is to face the future with zest and self-confidence, we must educate them to be original…
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Quote of the day

“Plato (…) also discovered the very insecure position of truth in the world, for ‘from opinions comes persuasion, and not from truth’ (Phaedrus 260). The most striking difference between ancient and modern sophists is that the ancients were satisfied with a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth, whereas the moderns want…
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On migration and diasporas

“To live “in diaspora” is to reside in one place but to keep in motion an emotional, cultural, or political relationship with another, whether it is the site of one’s nativity that subsequently became a point of departure or an ancestral “homeland” virtually conjured but never visited. (…) Diasporas (…) are platforms where received notions…
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Quote of the day

“To yield to the mere process of disintegration has become an irresistible temptation, not only because it has assumed the spurious grandeur of ‘historical necessity’, but also because everything outside it has begun to appear lifeless, bloodless, meaningless, and unreal. (…) Comprehension does not mean denying the outrageous (…). It means, rather, examining and bearing…
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Questions

Setting: Catholic religion class at school. Characters: New teacher – a man. A bunch of 9-year-olds. Open discussion about covenants. (Based loosely on recollection, don’t shoot the messenger!) Girl in my daughter’s class, with genuine curiosity: Why are all the priests men? Why are there no women priests? Teacher, gently: Well, you see, Jesus was…
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Category: Gesellschaft