I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? (Merchant of Venice... Continue Reading →
From the outset I should say that although I am about to argue that silence is A Good Thing that does not mean that I am advocating it as a sovereign universal remedy. Broccoli is also an excellent thing but some people just can't eat it. This does not represent a personal flaw or... Continue Reading →
Let the seeker quietly lead the mind into the Spirit, and let all his thoughts be silence. (Bhagavad Gita 6:25) The word 'meditation' has a number of different meanings and the dominant meaning has changed over time. For the sake of brevity I shall ignore all these complexities and concentrate on the technique which Krishna... Continue Reading →
I thought love was only true in fairy tales Meant for someone else but not for me Love was out to get me That's the way it seemed Disappointment haunted all of my dreams Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer. (The Monkees) Using their favoured allegorical method the Monkees here advance a... Continue Reading →
They speak no words of peace, but against the quiet in the land they fashion deceitful speech. (Psalm 35:20) If you are wise enough to avoid Twitter then 'The Great Chinese Prom Dress Scandal of 2018' may have passed you by. Briefly, Keziah Daum, an American teenager in Utah, went to her high school prom... Continue Reading →
How to find meaning Is: stop searching for meaning; It is always here. There are, I think, at least three major assumptions embedded in this micropoem. Namely- 1) That there is a universal human desire to find meaning in life and in the cosmos. 2) That this desire is often expressed in terms of a... Continue Reading →
In recent years debate around free speech issues has tended to focus on university campuses (or, strictly speaking, campi.) Radical students have got into the habit of using protest, or the threat of protest, to exclude or disrupt speakers who advance viewpoints which they, the radical students, find objectionable. One of the lines of argument... Continue Reading →
There is a school of thought which argues that human societies are predominantly characterised by oppression and by the resistance which this generates. The goal towards which such societies should travel is liberation from tyranny and the attainment of equality for all. Following from this there exists an observable hierarchy of oppression and, therefore, of... Continue Reading →
Two historical figures born about a thousand years apart, have played a crucial role in establishing what might be called the mental architecture of the Western world in 2018. One, Benedict of Nursia, has been designated as patron saint of Europe while the other, Jean Jacques Rousseau, might equally well be named as the patron... Continue Reading →
