totalitarianism
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Antigone, defiant and intimate (7/7. Love)
Part 7 and final part: Love. Antigone's desire is familial; she does not want to leave her brother unburied. Creon, on the other hand, desires to assert himself as king and demonstrate his power. Antigone prioritizes family ties, which embody love and reveal a person. Creon consolidates his power by signing a law that must... Continue reading
Antigone , stupidity , counter-revolution , ethics , history , intimacy , forgiveness , political correctness , religion , totalitarianism , tradition -
Antigone, defiant and intimate (5/7. Authority)
Part 5: Authority In ancient Greece, men knew and recognized themselves in the eyes of their family, their loved ones, their community. Women reserved for themselves the mirror, which was associated with beauty, femininity, and seduction. Reflection was everywhere. "There is no place that does not..." Continue reading
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What does it mean to be out of touch with reality?
The most illuminating example concerning human nature is found in the New Testament when Peter and Jesus Christ speak together, and Peter insists to his master that he believe his devotion is entirely sincere. Thus, Jesus tells him that before the rooster crows, he will have denied him three times. The first place Continue reading
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Antigone, defiant and intimate (6/7. The vocation)
So many stories about identity! The word appears neither in Greek epic nor in tragedy. Identity in Antigone's time was rooted in lineage and belonging to a city-state. Identity was imbued with rootedness. Family and city-state gathered under a virtual banner everything that the other needed to know about oneself. Continue reading
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Antigone, defiant and intimate (3/7. Destiny)
Part 3: Destiny. Man descends from the tree. Man, like the tree, is defined as much by his roots as by his fruit. Man, like the tree, depends on external and internal elements to reach maturity. Man resembles this trunk sculpted by trials, leaning on its roots and bearing fruit of varying quality. Continue reading
Antigone , counter-revolution , ethics , history , intimacy , forgiveness , religion , revolution , totalitarianism , vulgarity -
News from Louis-René des Forêts
On this rainy Sunday, rereading the notes I jotted down in the margins of the marvelous Ostinato, I came across this gem among gems: Let us not veil our faces with our hands. There is no longer anything to venerate, no act of glory or intelligence to absolve a world seduced by force, spreading its defilement everywhere, and which... Continue reading
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Charlie's Destiny
“The enemy limits you, therefore shapes you and establishes you.” This quote from Saint-Exupéry aptly expresses our condition at the end of this first week of 2015. The enemy forces me to operate according to its rules, within a space it has defined. I am, first and foremost, a prisoner. It chooses the terrain and compels me to remain there. Continue reading
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On totalitarian states
"Totalitarian states, which alternately use lies and violence (lies to cover up violence and violence to silence those who uncover the lies), owe most of their success to having paralyzed the forces of reaction against deceit and lies. This is on a moral level." Continue reading
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Simone de Beauvoir on human life
“To declare that life is absurd is to say that it will never have meaning. To say that it is ambiguous is to decide that its meaning is never fixed, that it must always be earned.”* A formidable declaration of powerlessness draped in an expression of the will to power, or how desire must regulate, govern life. This sentence is Continue reading