Sunday, September 24, 2006

beauty of reason is a philosophical one



The incendiary reaction by some Muslims against the Pope's academic recollection of a medieval Christian emperor's view of Islam's fetish for the sword is fair fodder for cartoon.

Now, Iran's Nasrallah in Lebanon exclaims that no army can remove Hezbollah's extant 20,000 swords (i.e., rockets) that are devoted to godknows what “resistance”—apparently resistance against a U.N. order of rights that Israel symbolizes.

Fundamentalist Islam is a campaign of the sword that nostalgically idealizes a new caliphate, contrary to all the Muslim lives flourishing peacefully within modern societies the world over. What Israel basically symbolizes for fundamentalist Islam (not just for violent extremists) is EuroAmerican modernity, and it is this realm of reason that was the point of the Pope's discourse earlier this month—something which has everything to do with the evolution of democracy within the Islamic world.

What's “evil”?:
a revised note to a student of religion



Once again, you're a good stimulation for thought. I'm no expert on evil, so let me know what you think here. You say that "....evil comes from ... experiences [of] fear, dread, uncanny, monstrous, disgust, disorder, unclean, polluted." What is the "comes from"? My sense of what's soberly called "evil" comes from what people normally mean my 'evil' (as indicated lexically or via standard accounts).

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Habermas as entrance into philosophical futuring



I have a rather intense sense of applied Habermasian work, making me a neo-Habermasian at best, but actually I'm not anymore basically Habermasian in my thinking, while I know of no better exemplar of philosophical work than Habermas. My post-Habermasian sense of things results after many years of avowedly Habermasian endeavor. Yet, I'm glad to hear from those who subscribe to the Yahoo! Habermas list because it seems to them that Habermas is at the leading edge of philosophy. They're right! Few really understand what he has been uniquely and profoundly trying to do in his career, as a matter of postmetaphysicalist thinking devoted to prospects for cosmopolitan life. If there's another philosopher more worth one's time, let's hear about it.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

investing in human futures


To: David Brooks, New York Times, re: " Investing in Human Futures"

David,

What's going to make parents really better parents? I'll vote for raising the child tax credit if it'll facilitate the engaged parenting that Unequal Childhoods addressed (which you discussed March 9, 2006). What ensures that consumerist adults will use the tax cut to buy time with their kids, if they're not constructively engaged with their kids already in the time they have? (This isn't a presumptuous question, since chronic learning difficulties are usually related to home life.) Again, what's going to make parents really better parents?

Sunday, September 3, 2006

desiring good society



I'm enthusiastic about Maeve Cook's recent Re-Presenting the Good Society, which I expressed to the Habermas list. But I deleted some thoughts educed by looking at her book:

That enthusiasm arises from my own hopes for a neo-Habermasian approach to things—including the difference between "the ethical" and "the moral" (which has been with me for a long time (e.g., Sep, 97 and Oct, 97: 2, 5, and 11).

Friday, September 1, 2006

on really bridging personal and social growth



A respondent to my "Hamas, grow up!" wrote:

R: I am not sure how beneficial it is to shout about it, no one likes being told to "grow up" or that they are "stupid" even though there comes a time when it is [nearly] impossible not to be exasperated beyond the point of endurance.

G: The respondent provided a great analogy in terms of teaching (or trying to teach) early teens, and I want to expand on this analogy relative to interest in social evolution, which my Hamas posting was tacitly about. It was not about primarily implying that Hamas is stupid. The content of that posting is about gaining political realism. Of course, teens are paranoid about looking stupid.