Tag Archives: negative capability

Walking in the Paws of Others: Was It Love, Duty, or Sympathy That Motivated This Dog?

Or am I anthropomorphizing? — If the dog’s behavior was not triggered by a conscious impulse to love, duty, or sympathy, why did the dog cross the road? I wonder if the dogs were even related. Can a dog have … Continue reading

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And These Two are One: Two Little Craniopagus Girls—or One? Will They Grow Up with Insights on the Nature of the Trinity?

Macleans/Ca. has a feature on conjoined twins who are craniopagus (joined at the head), and the twins appear to be sharing brain functions central to the self:  There is evidence that they can see through each other’s eyes and perhaps share each other’s unspoken … Continue reading

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Love Your Gay Neighbor?

Abuse met with heroism. The below story from this week’s Sunday Mercury illustrates why the idea of gay marriage will, over time, win over the general public: it’s hard to erect your hate on good neighbors: A MARRIED gay couple subjected … Continue reading

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Why I love the man

Ecce homo! From the transcript of a University of Michigan spring commencement speech that President Barack Obama gave on May 1, 2010:  [W]e need an educated citizenry that values hard evidence and not just assertion. As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously … Continue reading

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The view from my window

Inspired by Andrew Sullivan’s “The View from Your Window” feature at his blog (in which he posts what his readers see from their windows), I thought I might periodically start putting, on my blog, posts titled: The view from my  … Continue reading

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Reverse Super-Size Me: Kenda Swartz Pepper Feels Like 1.02 Billion

People, that is. Kenda Swartz Pepper, on March 20, started an experiment: to spend 21 days experiencing what it’s like to join the one billion people on the planet who go to bed hungry. Here’s Kenda today: 1.02 billion people in … Continue reading

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Barack Obama on Empathy

From The Audacity of Hope : “It is at the heart of my moral code and it is how I understand the Golden Rule — not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a … Continue reading

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Negative Capability Defined: Walking in Mysteries—and the Shoes of Others—with Keats, Shakespeare, Whitman—and Barack Obama!

In a letter dated 22 December, 1817, the poet John Keats coined the term “negative capability” and defined it this way: I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & … Continue reading

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Joyce Carol Oates on Creating Characters in Fiction

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