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Tag Archives: pessimism
My “Candide” Retort to Margaret MacMillan
It’s 2014. A hundred years ago, the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand initiated a series of calamitous events that brought on World War I. And the way WWI ended (with the Versailles Treaty) led to yet another series … Continue reading
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Tagged China, John Gray, nationalism, optimism, pessimism, philosophy, psychology, religion
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Increasing Knowledge Does Not Increase The Peace
That, at any rate, is John Gray’s thesis, and he has a new book out. In a recent interview at The Spectator, he had this to say: [K]nowledge can never eradicate the conflicts of the human world, or produce harmony where … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, books, God, John Gray, optimism, pessimism, philosophy
2 Comments
A Bit of Life Perspective from Woody Allen (and Owen Wilson)
In the below video, Woody Allen offers some unsettling and thought-provoking responses to some questions. Owen Wilson is also interesting. _________ Allen’s resigned and melancholy answers remind me that the winter holiday season is here and that my favorite Christmas … Continue reading
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Tagged Christmas, existentialism, Jesus, owen wilson, pessimism, woody allen
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Gray on Pink(er): Because of Our Evolution, the Irrational We’ll Always Have With Us
John Gray thinks Steven Pinker’s thesis in his new book—in which Pinker argues that the world is progressing toward an ever less violent future—is deluded. In the Jacob-wrestle between Enlightenment rationality and our evolution-formed imperatives, Gray is betting that our … Continue reading
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Tagged critical thinking, evolution, John Gray, optimism, pessimism, progress, reason, steven pinker, the Enlightenment
5 Comments
Cassandra 2012
___ I’m feeling increasingly bleak about the human future going into 2012. I say this without the least pleasure because I have two small children (one is five, the other is eight). I don’t want anything I point to here … Continue reading
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Tagged 2012, apocalypse now, Cassandra, H1N5, Iran, Israel, pessimism, predictions, The Book of Revelation, the end, The Plague
1 Comment
The Humanist Delusion?
In his book, Straw Dogs (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), professor of European thought, John Gray, argues that the humanist belief in progress is deluded in part because our experience of “consciousness, selfhood, and free will” are uneven at best (p. 38): Our lives … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, Christianity, critical thinking, humanism, John Gray, Nietzsche, pessimism, philosophy, reason
3 Comments
A Bit of Happy News for the Weekend
Willem Buiter is Citgroup’s chief economist, and here’s CNBC today reporting his forecast for the global economy over the next 40 years: “We expect strong growth in the world economy until 2050, with average real GDP growth rates of 4.6 percent … Continue reading
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Tagged 2012, armageddon, economics, End Times, good news, happiness, life, optimism, pessimism, reason, the future, weekends
4 Comments
Some Perpective on the New Year: A Bit of Pessimistic Buddha-Wisdom from Arthur Schopenhauer (and Monty Python)
A little something to keep life and the New Year in perspective. Arthur Schopenhauer, from Book 1, Section 16 of The World as Will and Representation (1818, translated from the German by E.F. Payne): For whenever a man in any … Continue reading
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Tagged arthur schopenhauer, Buddha, Buddhism, Job, life, monty python, pessimism, philosophy, stoicism, suffering, the problem of suffering, yoga
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Cosmic Pessimism v. Cosmic Optimism
The universe appears to be lacking in purpose in some ways, but not in others. For example, the Holocaust and the panda’s “thumb” would seem to suggest that we live in a historically contingent universe indifferent and blind to both suffering and … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Christianity, optimism, pessimism, philosophy, psychology, religion
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Albert Camus on Negation and Absurdity
This quote is from Albert Camus’s essay, “Pessimism and Tyranny.” It appeared in COMBAT, September 1945: No, everything is not summed up in negation and absurdity. We know this. But we must first posit negation and absurdity because they are what … Continue reading
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Tagged absurd, Albert Camus, atheism, existentialism, life, pessimism, philosophy, Richard Dawkins, the absurd, theology
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On Entropy, the Goddess Fortuna, and the Malice of Others: My Favorite Arthur Schopenhauer Quote
Arthur Schopenhauer wrote this in his “The World as Will and Representation” (Dover Edition, vol. 1, p. 88): “For whenever a man in any way loses self-control, or is struck down by a misfortune, or grows angry, or loses heart, … Continue reading
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Tagged athur schopenhauer, bad fortune, chance, Ecclesiastes, existentialism, fortune, good fortune, pessimism, philosophy, psychology, stoicism, time
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Are You a Passive Pessimist, ala Schopenhauer, or an Agressive Pessimist, ala Nietzsche?: A Review of Joshua Dienstag’s Book, “Pessimism”
Pessimism (Princeton 2006), by Joshua Foa Dienstag, is excellent on many levels, but its chief value is in the way it locates “pessimism” as an identifiable philosophical position. The author traces the pessimistic tradition through the Dionysian pre-Socratics, Rousseau, Schopenhauer, … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, atheism, Camus, existentialism, literature, Nietzsche, pessimism, philosophy, Politics, religion, Santi Tafarella
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Prometheus Unbound 