Good-humor makes all things tolerable
I am one of those marranes who no longer say they are Jews even in the secret of their own hearts.
What is called "objectivity," scientific for instance (in which I firmly believe, in a given situation) imposes itself only within a context which is extremely vast, old, firmly established, or rooted in a network of conventions. . . and yet which still remains a context.
If you read philosophical texts of the tradition, you'll notice they almost never said 'I,' and didn't speak in the first person. From Aristotle to Heidegger, they try to consider their own lives as something marginal or accidental. What was essential was their teaching and their thinking. Biography is something empirical and outside, and is considered an accident that isn't necessarily or essentially linked to the philosophical activity or system.
I say things that contradict each other, that are in real tension with each other, that compose me, that make me live, and that will make me die.
Who ever said that one was born just once?
Each time this identity announces itself, someone or something cries: Look out for the trap, youre caught. Take off, get free, disengage yourself.
Prior to 1968, the gullible gentiles could take a one dollar Federal Reserve note into any bank in America and redeem it for a dollar which was by law a coin containing 412 12 grains of 90 per cent silver. Up until 1933, one could have redeemed the same note for a coin of 25 45ths grains of 90 per cent gold. All we do is give the goy more non-redeemable notes, or else copper slugs. But we never give them their gold and silver. Only more paper.
So how can I hold Tobias’s desperation against him, like I’m better than him, like I’ve never let my own brokenness blind me?
I like to point out that people very often confuse the idea that truth is subjective with the fact that truth is perishable.
Given the difficulty of resisting such temptations over the longer run, a proper concern for the welfare of congressional souls may well be the ultimate argument in favor of term limitations.