USUPhilosophy

I’ve never been able to get much into E. M. Cioran’s aphorisms, though it seems like I should. Here’s a review of a book about him, with this concluding paragraph:

To read Cioran is to be reminded of another strain in Western culture, one that rejects the progressive ethic of political compromise and social improvement. It is customary, now, to refer to such eruptive and wild-hearted modes of thought, particularly where they coexist with a penetrating intellect, acute criticisms of the liberal political order, and high talent for prose, as “dangerous” – to demean with this label anything touched by the slightest breath of anti-modern sentiment. Cioran’s work belongs to the category of the “dangerous”. And the word applies as both a term of opprobrium and a term of the very highest praise: After all, if philosophy is not dangerous, what purpose can it have?

I never tire of posting articles on the value of a classical liberal arts education.  Read here for some reflections on a recent Ralph McInerny interview.

On a totally unrelated point: Classic item in the Herald Journal today, the sort of thing you only read in Utah.  They were highlighting a bright young girl (valedictorian of her class I believe) who will soon be graduating from high school.  All she could talk about was her marriage in one month.  Here was the classic Utah line: ‘She’s been dating since she was in 8th grade, so thought it was time to settle down.’  Hilarious.

Pretty funny.

Advisory: naughty words used (aplenty).

There is a good YouTube interview with John Perry, a philosopher at Stanford who has been hugely influential in thinking about personal identity. What’s especially valuable is the personality Perry shows — patience, wisdom, and modesty. Worth a look.

This article, titled ‘Defining Discourse Down’ does a pretty nice job of summing up why serious conversations are so difficult in this day and age (he blames it on an excess of both jerkiness and niceness).  He has some sound advice at the end too.