Laws Of Seduction Quotes

But what do the socialists do? They cleverly disguise this legal plunder from others -- and even from themselves -- under the seductive names of fraternity, unity, organization, and association. Because we ask so little from the law -- only justice -- the socialists thereby assume that we reject fraternity, unity, organization, and association.

Investors are people with more money than time. Employees are people with more time than money. Entrepreneurs are simply the seductive go-betweens. Startups are business experiments performed with other people’s money. Marketing is like sex: only losers pay for it.” “Company culture is what goes without saying. There are no real rules, only laws. Success forgives all sins. People who leak to you, leak about you. Meritocracy is the propaganda we use to bless the charade. Greed and vanity are the twin engines of bourgeois society. Most managers are incompetent and maintain their jobs via inertia and politics. Lawsuits are merely expensive feints in a well-scripted conflict narrative between corporate entities. Capitalism is an amoral farce in which every player—investor, employee, entrepreneur, consumer—is complicit.

Law and Justice took over the state public broadcaster—also in violation of the constitution—firing popular presenters and experienced reporters. Their replacements, recruited from the far-right extremes of the online media, began running straightforward ruling-party propaganda, sprinkled with easily disprovable lies, at taxpayers’ expense.

In your thinking, learn to blend the analytical with the intuitive in order to become more creative.

Poetic Terrorism WEIRD DANCING IN ALL-NIGHT computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. ... Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc. Go naked for a sign. Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty. Graffiti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public monuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, Xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement... The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by PT ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive breakthrough, dada-esque angst--no matter whether the PT is aimed at one person or many, no matter whether it is "signed" or anonymous, if it does not change someone's life (aside from the artist) it fails. PT is an act in a Theater of Cruelty which has no stage, no rows of seats, no tickets & no walls. In order to work at all, PT must categorically be divorced from all conventional structures for art consumption (galleries, publications, media). Even the guerilla Situationist tactics of street theater are perhaps too well known & expected now. An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life--may be the ultimate PT. The PTerrorist behaves like a confidence-trickster whose aim is not money but CHANGE. Don't do PT for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives--but don't be spontaneous unless the PT Muse has possessed you. Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best PT is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art.

Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if attacked. . . . A powerful desire for aggression has to be reckoned as part of their . . . endowment. —Sigmund Freud

Normal. What did normal mean, Ferguson asked himself , and why wasn't it normal for him to feel the way he did about wanting to kiss and make love to other boys, the sex of one-sex was just as normal and natural as the sex of two-sex sex, maybe even more normal and more natural because a cock was something boys understood better than girls, and therefore it was easier to know what the other person wanted without having to guess, without having to play the courtship and seduction games that could make the sex of two-sex sex confounding, and why did a person have to choose between one or the other, why block out one-half of the humanity in the name of normal or natural when the truth was that everyone was Both, and people and society and the laws and religions of people in different societies were just too afraid to admit it.

Do not be afraid to bring out the more sensitive or ambitious sides to your character. These repressed parts of you are yearning to be let out. In the theater of life, expand the roles that you play. Don’t worry about people’s reactions to any changes in you they sense. You are not so easy to categorize, which will fascinate them and give you the power to play with their perceptions of you, altering them at will.

Oh, Séraphine," he purred, pushing his nose close to her jaw to inhale her righteous scent. "Who do you suppose sits in Parliament? Who makes the laws, runs the government of this great and lofty nation, hmm?" She hadn't bathed this morning, he could tell, and she smelled of herself: woman, sweat, sex. He licked across her cheek, tasting salt and pure saint, to her mouth. He bit her lips. Once, twice, a third time, wanting, craving.

I tell you that man has no more tormenting care than to find someone to whom he can hand over as quickly as possible that gift of freedom with which the miserable creature is born. But he alone can take over the freedom of men who appeases their conscience. With bread you were given an indisputable banner: give man bread and he will bow down to you, for there is nothing more indisputable than bread. But if at the same time someone else takes over his conscience - oh, then he will even throw down your bread and follow him who has seduced his conscience. In this you were right. For the mystery of man's being is not only in living, but in what one lives for. Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if there is bread all around him. That is so, but what came of it? Instead of taking over men's freedom, you increased it still more for them! Did you forget that peace and even death are dearer to man than free choice in the knowledge of good and evil? There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but there is nothing more tormenting either. And so, instead of a firm foundation for appeasing human conscience once and for all, you chose everything that was unusual, enigmatic, and indefinite, you chose everything that was beyond men's strength, and thereby acted as if you did not love them at all - and who did this? He who came to give his life for them! Instead of taking over men's freedom, you increased it and forever burdened the kingdom of the human soul with its torments. You desired the free love of man, that he should follow you freely. seduced and captivated by you. Instead of the firm ancient law, men had henceforth to decide for himself, with a free heart, what is good and what is evil, having only your image before him as a guide - but did it not occur to you that he would eventually reject and dispute even your image and your truth if he was oppressed by so terrible a burden as freedom of choice? They will finally cry out that the truth is not in you, for it was impossible to leave them in greater confusion and torment than you did, abandoning them to so many cares and insoluble problems. Thus you yourself laid the foundation for the destruction of your own kingdom, and do not blame anyone else for it.

Act before it becomes impossible to disentangle one strand of misery from another, or to see how the whole thing started.

What you need is a mental filtering system based on a scale of priorities and your long-term goals.

Daily Law: Put your faith in learning, not technology.

Work every day on improving those skills that mesh with your unique spirit and purpose

Daily Law: Embrace your strangeness. Identify what makes you different. Fuse those things together and become an anomaly.

Let a Sense of Purpose Guide You Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings blessed death. —Leonardo da Vinci

Depending on Others Is Misery

Daily Law: It is simple: depending on others is misery; depending on yourself is power.

The Laws of Human Nature, 1: Master Your Emotional Self—The Law of Irrationality

Satanism, in principle, is a perverse projection of the Law into matter. Therefore, even this path has its aesthetic elements. For there are also artists of evil, artists who can give flowing blood the magic of a crimson evening afterglow—adepts of delusion, who with a mere sight, evoke the seductive song of Death and loathsome orgies turn into a wild cascade of ardent memories.

The single greatest action you can take for acquiring creative power is to reverse this natural impatience. Daily Law: Imagine yourself years in the future looking back at the work you have done.

Since you are on your own, it is up to you to foresee the changes going on right now in your profession. You must adapt your Life’s Task to these circumstances. You do not hold on to past ways of doing things, because that will ensure you will fall behind and suffer for it. You are flexible and always looking to adapt. If change is forced upon you, you must resist the temptation to overreact or feel sorry for yourself.

I can see, I can see that it is in this distorted vision of the world's proper proportions that lies the secret of our fears. We make the animals bigger with our fears. We make our creations and our loves smaller, we shrink by our vision, and enlarge and shrink according to the whims of our interchangeable vision, not according to an immutable law of growth. The size of each world we live in is individual and relative, and the objects and people vary in each EYE.

Daily Law: Think back on the moments when you felt deeply and personally connected to an activity. Think about the pleasure it brought you. In such activities are signs of your true purpose. Mastery, I: Discover Your Calling—The Life’s Task

Cusps can be found at many places on the body. Am obvious example is a cleavage, when viewed obliquely. It is a little-known fact that there is a two-thirds power law at the focus of many a historical period drama, center stage in the heroine's decolletage.

When the artist leaves a painting on a wall with the full confidence that the mastery of his skill, soul and vision will draw others into its vortex long after he is gone, he is using the grip of seduction. When the musician’s performance, the manipulation of her instrument and the command of her talents are so raw and uninhibited that onlookers feel connected to the cosmos, bridged by the pure genius they are now experiencing, she is using the mystery of seduction. The unexplainable feeling fans get when the athlete ceases to be an athlete and rises to the level of the untouchable magician that can make anything happen, is nothing less than the power of seduction at work. The immense value of seduction is its ability to skillfully allure others into one’s world . . . .

In fact, it is a curse to have everything go right on your first attempt. You will fail to question the element of luck, making you think that you have the golden touch. When you do inevitably fail, it will confuse and demoralize you past the point of learning.

To separate yourself from the mechanical and reactive types, you need to get rid of a common misconception: the essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than the enemy does.

Daily Law: No calling is superior to another. What matters is that it be tied to a personal need and inclination, and that your energy moves you toward improvement and continuous learning from experience. The Laws of Human Nature, 13: Advance with a Sense of Purpose—The Law of Aimlessness

When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know. —Socrates

How will it fill our souls with perpetual joy, to think that in the streams of this blood we have swum through the violence of the world, the snares of Satan, the seductions of flesh, the curse of the law, the wrath of an offended God, the accusations of a guilty conscience, and the vexing doubts and fears of an unbelieving heart, and are arrived safely at the presence of God!

I open the books on Right and on ethics; I listen to the professors and jurists; and, my mind full of their seductive doctrines, I admire the peace and justice established by the civil order; I bless the wisdom of our political institutions and, knowing myself a citizen, cease to lament I am a man. Thoroughly instructed as to my duties and my happiness, I close the book, step out of the lecture room, and look around me. I see wretched nations groaning beneath a yoke of iron. I see mankind ground down by a handful of oppressors, I see a famished mob, worn down by sufferings and famine, while the rich drink the blood and tears of their victims at their ease. I see on every side the strong armed with the terrible powers of the Law against the weak. And all this is done quietly and without resistance. It is the peace of Ulysses and his comrades, imprisoned in the cave of the Cyclops and waiting their turn to be devoured. We must groan and be silent. Let us for ever draw a veil over sights so terrible. I lift my eyes and look to the horizon. I see fire and flame, the fields laid waste, the towns put to sack. Monsters! where are you dragging the hapless wretches? I hear a hideous noise. What a tumult and what cries! I draw near; before me lies a scene of murder, ten thousand slaughtered, the dead piled in heaps, the dying trampled under foot by horses, on every side the image of death and the throes of death. And that is the fruit of your peaceful institutions! Indignation and pity rise from the very bottom of my heart. Yes, heartless philosopher! come and read us your book on a field of battle!

Mary didn't know much about Mexican law, but she felt quite certain she could hold out in the crumbling village jail for a long, long time. She knew how strong she was. And she knew the difference between right and wrong. Above all, she knew how to defy the man she hated for making love to her until she let down all her defenses. Deceitful, dishonest, devastatingly seductive Max would never get her to give in again!

Of course, they don't like him! Liking is for ninny-hammers. Real men elicit rancor." Pausing for a moment of deep consideration, she added, "Loathing, even. But never liking." "Hatred, perhaps?" suggested Mary's brother-in-law, hiding his amused smile behind a tone of excessive gravity. Mrs. Fustian was not impressed. "Certainly not. Any common laborer can hate. True connoisseurs prefer more subtle shades of aversion.

The central fact of biblical history, the birth of the Messiah, more than any other, presupposes the design of Providence in the selecting and uniting of successive producers, and the real, paramount interest of the biblical narratives is concentrated on the various and wondrous fates, by which are arranged the births and combinations of the 'fathers of God.' But in all this complicated system of means, having determined in the order of historical phenomena the birth of the Messiah, there was no room for love in the proper meaning of the word. Love is, of course, encountered in the Bible, but only as an independent fact and not as an instrument in the process of the genealogy of Christ. The sacred book does not say that Abram took Sarai to wife by force of an ardent love, and in any case Providence must have waited until this love had grown completely cool for the centenarian progenitors to produce a child of faith, not of love. Isaac married Rebekah not for love but in accordance with an earlier formed resolution and the design of his father. Jacob loved Rachel, but this love turned out to be unnecessary for the origin of the Messiah. He was indeed to be born of a son of Jacob - Judah - but the latter was the offspring, not of Rachel but of the unloved wife, Leah. For the production in the given generation of the ancestor of the Messiah, what was necessary was the union of Jacob precisely with Leah; but to attain this union Providence did not awaken in Jacob any powerful passion of love for the future mother of the 'father of God' - Judah. Not infringing the liberty of Jacob's heartfelt feeling, the higher power permitted him to love Rachel, but for his necessary union with Leah it made use of means of quite a different kind: the mercenary cunning of a third person - devoted to his own domestic and economic interests - Laban. Judah himself, for the production of the remote ancestors of the Messiah, besides his legitimate posterity, had in his old age to marry his daughter-in-law Tamar. Seeing that such a union was not at all in the natural order of things, and indeed could not take place under ordinary conditions, that end was attained by means of an extremely strange occurrence very seductive to superficial readers of the Bible. Nor in such an occurrence could there be any talk of love. It was not love which combined the priestly harlot Rahab with the Hebrew stranger; she yielded herself to him at first in the course of her profession, and afterwards the casual bond was strengthened by her faith in the power of the new God and in the desire for his patronage for herself and her family. It was not love which united David's great-grandfather, the aged Boaz, with the youthful Moabitess Ruth, and Solomon was begotten not from genuine, profound love, but only from the casual, sinful caprice of a sovereign who was growing old.

There are two kinds of failure. The first comes from never trying out your ideas because you are afraid, or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This kind of failure you can never learn from, and such timidity will destroy you. The second kind comes from a bold and venturesome spirit. If you fail in this way, the hit that you take to your reputation is greatly outweighed by what you learn. Repeated failure will toughen your spirit and show you with absolute clarity how things must be done.

What if our souls are connected to each other and flow together in and out of time like a giant woven tapestry? What if it was that simple and that real? The laws of physics state that energy cannot be destroyed, and we are made of energy. When each of us dies, that energy reenters the atmosphere. What if it does become part of the collective blanket of souls? Threads of energy that connect us to each other. What if it is our obligation to follow them, despite the knots and tangles, through to the end?

The Art of Seduction was classic PUA reading material, along with Greene’s other book, The 48 Laws of Power. For the former, Greene studied the greatest seductions of history and literature in search of common themes. His book classified different types of seducers (among them rakes, ideal lovers, and naturals); targets (drama queens, rescuers, crushed stars); and techniques, all of which jibed with community philosophy (approach indirectly, send mixed signals, appear to be an object of desire, isolate the victim). “How

firstly, what "really" attracted me to Indo-European, as well as to English, Polish, and Russian philology, wasn't the seductive variety of linguistic forms, or the infinitely picturesque accidents that fill the histories of words and dialects, but rather the fact that these obey lays that can be rigorously described, and that these laws, such as Grimm's Law in Germanic philology, or the principles of Slavic palatalization, which lie behind all those wonderful alveolar fricatives in Russia and the Auvergne, promised to submit the irresistible and etrnal movement of languages no longer to mere chance, but to something that closely resembled calculation; - and that, secondly, and consequently, the noblest aspect of linguistics (and if I had been familiar with Trouetzkoy's phonology and with Jakobson, this conclusion would have been even more obvious) was its power of deduction -- but that there remained something even nobler, which was the terrain of pure deduction, in other words, mathematics. And that it is why I absolutely had to become a mathematician.

The temptation is to insist that black men 'choose' to be criminals; the system does not make them criminals, at least not in the way that slavery made blacks slaves or Jim Crow made them second-class citizens. The myth of choice here is seductive, but it should be resisted. African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically higher rates for precisely the same conduct. In fact, studies suggest that white professionals may be the most likely of any group to have engaged in illegal drug activity in their lifetime, yet they are the least likely to be made criminals. The prevalence of illegal drug activity among all racial and ethnic groups creates a situation in which, due to limited law enforcement resources and political constraints, some people are made criminals while others are not. Black people have been made criminals by the War on Drugs to a degree that dwarfs its effect on other racial and ethnic groups, especially whites. And the process of making them criminals has produced racial stigma.

In the same way, we have to inform the multitude that restoration comes at a price. Suppose we give them an intimation of the cost through a series of questions. Are you ready, we must ask them, to grant that the law of reward is inflexible and that one cannot, by cunning or through complaints, obtain more than he puts in? Are you prepared to see that comfort may be a seduction and that the fetish of material prosperity will have to be pushed aside in favor of some sterner ideal? Do you see the necessity of accepting duties before you begin to talk of freedoms?

Our laws and institutions concerning women's rights and male prerogatives are changing, but many men still believe that their masculine image depends on their ability to dominate and control women. Our culture reinforces this idea by depicting women as appropriate targets for men's hostilities. In literature, movies, and television, women are used by men as shields, foils, and hostages. They are raped, beaten, and shot with frightening regularity. Pornography implies that a woman's inherent seductiveness justifies any sadistic and/or sexual act a man wishes to commit against her.

You have such strength," she said softly, "but you have never hurt me. I find that remarkable." "I am very careful not to hurt you," he said, his voice thick. Rycca nodded. "I appreciate that." She touched his lean hips and beyond, lightly caressing the hard muscles of his buttocks. He gritted his teeth and swore to himself that he could bear this. She was very close to him now, the thin cloth of her chemise brushing against him.He found that barrier intolerable. Plucking at the fabric, he muttered, "Take it off." She looked a little surprised, then smiled. "The truth is,I feel safer with it on, a little bolder." "Little?" He wanted to say more, something about her being any bolder and he would burst, but he couldn't get the words out. Probably because he wasn't breathing very well. Rycca hesitated but only a moment. With the gracefulness so natural to her, she lifted the chemise over her head and discarded it. In the silvery moonlight, her skin glowed like polished alabaster, pale but for the rosy fullness of her nipples and the fiery curls between her thights. He reached for her urgently, but once again she eluded his grasp. "Please..." she said again and took his thick wrists in her hands. Drawing them away from her body, she reaised her head and met his eyes. "You can't realize how much I want to..." "Thor's thunder,lady,do whatever you will before I perish!" Her eyes widened yet more and a startled laugh broke from her. Then her expression was suddenly wistful. "Do not think badly of me." Badly? How in all creation could he manage that? She was a dream brought to life, the most exquisitely seductive enchantress he had ever imagined. And she was his by the law of man and God. In all the wide world, how could a man ask for more?

Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation. This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.

The Seductive Lure of Socialism Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation. This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.

Without warning, Jay reached over and grabbed her belt. With a hard yank, he pulled her toward him. Her robe slid up her thighs and Zara licked her lips in shameless hunger. Did he know how wet she was? How her breasts ached? How desperately she wanted him? Jay gave a satisfied growl, holding her in place. "The law requires your consent for a search." He pulled her closer, his gaze hot and roaming. "I have to warn you. I am very thorough." "I have nothing to hide." She was burning. Liquid fire rushed through her veins, pooling between her legs. It was like Jay had plucked her deepest darkest fantasies from her mind and was making them all come true. He gave a small, calculating smile. "I don't leave anything untouched, sweetheart." "I'm not your sweetheart." "You will be when I'm done with you." He devoured her with his gaze, his eyes so dark they were almost black. "Robe off. I need to assess the search area." She slid the robe over her arms and lay back on the bed. "How's this?" He inhaled sharply, his gaze raking over her body, and then again more slowly in blatant sexual appraisal. "I see you've decided to make things difficult, but I can't be distracted." "I'm not afraid of you." She arched her back, parted her legs just enough to tease. Did he think he was the one in control? "You should be." His voice dropped to a husky growl.

The channel does not pay lip service to fairness. It does not employ any neutral commentators. On the contrary, it celebrates its own ability to manipulate reality. At one point in 2018, the station showed a clip from a press conference; the then leader of the opposition party, Grzegorz Schetyna, was asked what his party achieved during its eight years in government, from 2007 to 2015. The clip shows Schetyna pausing and frowning; the video slows down and then ends. It’s as if he had nothing to say. In reality, Schetyna spoke for several minutes about the mass construction of roads, investments in the countryside, and advances in foreign policy. But this manipulated clip—one example of many—was deemed such a success that for several days, it remained pinned to the top of Telewizja Polska’s Twitter feed. Under Law and Justice, state television doesn’t just produce regime propaganda; it draws attention to the fact that it is doing so. It doesn’t just twist and contort information, it glories in deceit.

This doesn't mean we can or should return to an analog past: there was a lot that was wrong with the old media world, and there is much that is right about the new: political movements, online forums, and new ideas that wouldn't exist without it. But all these changes--from the fragmentation of the public sphere to the absence of a center ground, from the rise of partisanship to the waning influence of respected neutral institutions--do seem to bother people who have difficulty with complexity and cacophony. Even if we weren't living through a period of rapid demographic change, even if the economy were not in turmoil, even if there were no health crisis, it is still the case that the splintering of the center right and the center left, the rise in some countries of separatist movements, the growth in angry rhetoric, the proliferation of extremist and racist voices that had been marginalized for half a century would persuade a chunk of voters to vote for someone who promises a new and more orderly order.

As the result of its systems and of its efforts, it would seem that socialism, notwithstanding all its self-compaceny, can scarcely help perceiving the monster of legal plunder. But what does it do? It disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organization, association. And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we only ask it for justice, it alleges that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. We can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization, but forced organization. It is not free association, but the forms of association that they would impose upon us. It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity. It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is only an unjust displacement of responsibility. Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thingbeing done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State--then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion--then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, beacuse we object to the cultivation of corn by the State.

Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black. The temptation is to insist that black men “choose” to be criminals; the system does not make them criminals, at least not in the way that slavery made blacks slaves or Jim Crow made them second-class citizens. The myth of choice here is seductive, but it should be resisted. African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically higher rates for precisely the same conduct. In fact, studies suggest that white professionals may be the most likely of any group to have engaged in illegal drug activity in their lifetime, yet they are the least likely to be made criminals.52 The prevalence of illegal drug activity among all racial and ethnic groups creates a situation in which, due to limited law enforcement resources and political constraints, some people are made criminals while others are not. Black people have been made criminals by the War on Drugs to a degree that dwarfs its effect on other racial and ethnic groups, especially whites. And the process of making them criminals has produced racial stigma.

Willow chuckled as all up and down Allen Street lights began to glow through every window. Someone in a room down the hall lifted their window threw a chamber pot at the crooners, and followed it with a foul epithet. Undaunted, the men broke into a chorus of Aura Lea. “They sure have lousy timing,” Rider commented wryly. “Just how long does this little serenade last?” Seeing a tall figure in a long frock coat coming up the street, Willow replied, “I think it’s about to end very soon now.” Virgil Earp’s face shone in the gaslight in front of the Grand. “All right, boys,” the couple heard him say, “the party’s over.” He looked up at Rider and Willow with a wide, winsome grin and waved. With that, he ushered the drunken serenaders down the street and into the saloon. Rider turned from the window, shaking his head. “Now where were we? Ah, yes!” He swooped Willow off her feet and tossed her onto the huge bed. “That’s not where we were.” She laughed. “It’s where we were headed, lady, and that’s good enough for me.” Pulling her up, he pulled the rumbled robe off her shoulders to reveal a floaty silk nightdress of aqua. Though it was entirely modest in design, the soft material hugged her curves enticingly. “Lord, woman, there ought to be a law against sheer nothings like this.” Willow smiled seductively. “Do you like it?” “So much that I’m going to strip it off you right now!” Willow giggled and tried to escape, scrambling across the bed. She was quickly foiled by yards of silk tangling about her legs. Rider wasn’t one to waste opportunities and dived onto the bed on top of her. “Ah-hah. I have you in my power now, my pretty!” he said, catching her hands above her head. Chuckling, Willow wiggled and squirmed beneath him in a halfhearted effort to free herself. She watched fascinated as his eyes flamed with desire. Her voice was breathy and provocative. “Who’s got who, villain? I think I’ve got you.

The issue is not merely one of false stories, incorrect facts, or even election campaigns and spin doctors: the social media algorithms themselves encourage false perceptions of the world. People click on the news they want to hear; Facebook, YouTube, and Google then show them more of whatever it is that they already favor, whether it is a certain brand of soap or a particular form of politics. The algorithms radicalize those who use them too. If you click on perfectly legitimate anti-immigration YouTube sites, for example, these can lead you quickly, in just a few more clicks, to white nationalist sites and then to violent xenophobic sites. Because they have been designed to keep you online, the algorithms also favor emotions, especially anger and fear. And because the sites are addictive, they affect people in ways they don't expect. Anger becomes a habit. Divisiveness becomes normal. Even if social media is not yet the primary news source for all Americans, it already helps shape how politicians and journalists interpret the world and portray it. Polarization has moved from the online world into reality. The result is a hyper-partisanship that adds to the distrust of "normal" politics, "establishment" politicians, derided "experts," and "mainstream" institutions--including courts, police, civil servants--and no wonder. As polarization increases, the employees of the state are invariably portrayed as having been "captured" by their opponents. It is not an accident that the Law and Justice Party in Poland, the Brexiteers in Britain, and the Trump administration in the United States have launched verbal assaults on civil servants and professional diplomats. It is not an accident that judges and courts are now the object of criticism, scrutiny, and anger in so many other places too. There can be no neutrality in a polarized world because there can be no nonpartisan or apolitical institutions.

I bind to myself today The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity: I believe the Trinity in the Unity The Creator of the Universe. I bind to myself today The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism, The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial, The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension, The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day. I bind to myself today The virtue of the love of seraphim, In the obedience of angels, In the hope of resurrection unto reward, In prayers of Patriarchs, In predictions of Prophets, In preaching of Apostles, In faith of Confessors, In purity of holy Virgins, In deeds of righteous men. I bind to myself today The power of Heaven, The light of the sun, The brightness of the moon, The splendour of fire, The flashing of lightning, The swiftness of wind, The depth of sea, The stability of earth, The compactness of rocks. I bind to myself today God's Power to guide me, God's Might to uphold me, God's Wisdom to teach me, God's Eye to watch over me, God's Ear to hear me, God's Word to give me speech, God's Hand to guide me, God's Way to lie before me, God's Shield to shelter me, God's Host to secure me, Against the snares of demons, Against the seductions of vices, Against the lusts of nature, Against everyone who meditates injury to me, Whether far or near, Whether few or with many. I invoke today all these virtues Against every hostile merciless power Which may assail my body and my soul, Against the incantations of false prophets, Against the black laws of heathenism, Against the false laws of heresy, Against the deceits of idolatry, Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids, Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man. Christ, protect me today Against every poison, against burning, Against drowning, against death-wound, That I may receive abundant reward. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left, Christ in the fort, Christ in the chariot seat, Christ in the poop, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. I bind to myself today The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity, I believe the Trinity in the Unity The Creator of the Universe.

Por último, frente a un impetuoso y precipitado enemigo, no reaccionar resulta una reacción excelente. La táctica de Talleyrand: Nada es tan irritante como un hombre que mantiene la calma mientras que los demás la pierden. Cuando usted pueda obtener una ventaja desconcertando a su adversario, adopte una posición de aristocrática displicencia, sin burlarse, ni mostrarse triunfante sino solo haciendo gala de su indiferencia. Esto encenderá la mecha. Cuando su adversario se haya puesto en una situación embarazosa a raíz de sus arranques de ira, usted habrá ganado varias victorias, una de las cuales es que, frente a una actitud infantil, usted logró mantener su dignidad y compostura.

If not hatred," put in her brother-in-law as the path broadened so that they could walk all abreast, "what of love?" Out of the corner of her eye, Mary saw her sister and brother-in-law exchange a sickeningly speaking glance. "Hmph," was Mrs. Fustian's eloquent opinion on that subject. For the first time that evening, Mary found herself in perfect agreement with her. "Good enough for shepherdesses, but not at all the thing for civilized folks. Love is a severely destabilizing emotion. Look at Paris," she finished, as though that said it all. "The city, or the Greek?" inquired Letty in a tone of suppressed laughter, her arm twined possessively through her husband's. "Either!" declared Mrs. Fustian.

In American law, there is the Constitution and the whole body of common law precedent, and very little of that supports socialism. Consequently, if you are a Left-wing graduate student or professor in literature or law and you are confronted with the Western legal or literary canon, you have two choices. You can take on the opposing traditions, have your students read the great books and the great decisions, and argue with them in your classes. That is very hard work and also very risky—your students might come to agree with the wrong side. Or you can find a way to dismiss the whole tradition, so that you can teach only books that fit your politics. If you are looking for shortcuts, or if you have a sneaking suspicion that the right side might not fare well in the debate, then deconstruction is seductive. Deconstruction allows you to dismiss whole literary and legal traditions as built upon sexist or racist or otherwise exploitative assumptions.

Perhaps the suspicions stemmed from the distinct lack of women in Batman’s world. True, he crafted his Bruce Wayne alter ego to be an idle playboy, which meant there were a lot of beautiful women in his life. But, the most important female figure in his world seemed only to be his sainted, slain mother, to whose memory, along with that of his late father, Bruce swore to uphold justice and thwart evil. Bruce and Batman might have had romances with girls like debutante Julie Madison or reporter Vicki Vale, but showed neither any true affection. The one female who generated the most heat with Batman was the seductive, whip-wielding jewel thief Catwoman. Of course, since she was on the wrong side of the law, any chance of a romance with Batman was immediately crushed. (...) Batman’s sexy foe Catwoman was deemed too racy for the new world of the Comics Code. She was gone by 1954.

Funny how being on a new planet at the edges of the universe isn’t as scary as meeting my in-laws.

the powerful are often reluctant to take advice,

You may have brilliant ideas, the kind that could revolutionize the world, but unless you can express them effectively, they will have no force, no power to enter people’s minds in a deep and lasting way.

Recognize Your Aggressive Impulses

We cannot separate this aggressiveness from the way we attack problems, alter the environment to make our lives easier, fight injustice, or create anything on a large scale.

Daily Law: Rationality is something to be acquired by individuals, not by mass movements or technological progress.

Learning never exhausts the mind.—Leonardo da Vinci

The greatest danger you face is your general assumption that you really understand people and that you can quickly judge them. Instead, you must begin with the assumption that you are ignorant and that you have natural biases that will make you judge people incorrectly. Each person you meet is like an undiscovered country, with a very particular psychological chemistry that you will carefully explore.

Never take it for granted that your past successes will continue in the future. Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today.

feelings are nothing final or original; behind feelings there stand judgments and evaluations which we inherit in the form of . . . inclinations, aversions. The inspiration born of a feeling is the grandchild of a judgment—and often of a false judgment!—and in any event not a child of your own!

The Laws of Human Nature, 16: See the Hostility Behind the Friendly Façade—The Law of Aggression

Lost in Trivia

Knowing what you want to accomplish in the end will help you weed out the essential from the nonessential.

You do not have to know all the details. Sometimes you need to delegate—let your subordinates handle the information gathering.

Daily Law: Remember that greater control over events will come from realistic assessments of the situation, precisely what is made most difficult by a brain submerged in trivia. The Laws of Human Nature, 6: Elevate Your Perspective—The Law of Shortsightedness

Return to the harder or softer sides of your character that you have lost or repressed.

We like to scoff at the superstitious and irrational ideas that most people held in the seventeenth century. Imagine how those of the twenty-fifth century will scoff at ours. Our knowledge of the world is limited, despite the advances of science. Our ideas are conditioned by the prejudices instilled in us by our parents, by our culture, and by the historical period we live in. They are further limited by the increasing rigidity of the mind. A bit more humility about what we know would make us all more curious and interested in a wider range of ideas.

Daily Law: Rationality is something to be acquired by individuals, not by mass movements or technological progress. Feeling superior and beyond it is a sure sign that the irrational is at work. The Laws of Human Nature, 1: Master Your Emotional Self—The Law of Irrationality

Avoid the Counterforces to Mastery

The passive-ironic attitude is not cool or romantic, but pathetic and destructive.

Daily Law: If you are too present and familiar, always available and visible, you seem too banal. You give people no room to idealize you. But if you are too aloof, people cannot identify with you. The Laws of Human Nature, 15: Make Them Want to Follow You—The Law of Fickleness

Absence diminishes minor passions and inflames great ones, as the wind douses a candle and fans a fire. —François de La Rochefoucauld

You see, God was never interested in taking our power [sensual power] from us. If God actually took your sinful nature away, He would have to also take your sensual power away. Meaning you would be left boring and stale as dry bread. No pizazz, which is the quality of being exciting, attractive and enchanting. Listen, God is not interested and it’s never been in His divine plan to take away your allure, magnetism, charm, magic, seductiveness. Because that’s your vital life force. It’s religion (the law from which Christ has redeemed us) that has drained all of that juicefullness out of most people in the name of ‘redemption.

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. —Franz Kafka

Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. —Carl Jung

Power is endlessly seductive and deceptive in its own way. It is a labyrinth—your mind becomes consumed with solving its infinite problems, and you soon realize how pleasantly lost you have become.

Power is endlessly seductive and deceptive in its own way. It is a labyrinth—your mind becomes consumed with solving its infinite problems, and you soon realize how pleasantly lost you have become. In other words, it becomes most amusing by taking it seriously.

And then by the fifth chapter, something unexpected happened. The fifth chapter is about the creative process itself. And the idea is that once you do enough work on a project, enough preparation, and you’ve had all of these months of experience delving into the subject, you often reach a state of creativity where ideas come to you out of nowhere. And suddenly this was happening to me.

He did not merely socialize—he strained to understand people at their core and to uncover their secret motivations. He did not just analyze his own psychology but went so deeply into the various levels of consciousness he found within himself that he developed insights about the functioning of memory that foreshadowed many discoveries in neuroscience.

It is wrong to use statements such as “there is no south of the South Pole” as proof that there is nothing beyond the point when time stops. Such statements may sound seductive, but they are not scientific, nor do they prove what they try to prove.

We will start with Hawking's few quotations. “The quantum theory of gravity has opened up a new possibility, in which there would be no boundary to spacetime and so there would be no need to specify the behavior at the boundary. There would be no singularities at which the laws of science broke down and no edge of spacetime at which one would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for spacetime. One could say: ‘The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.’ The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.” Or, in the same manner: “There ought to be something very special about the boundary conditions of the universe, and what can be more special than the condition that there is no boundary?” Also, he stated, “According to the no-boundary proposal, asking what came before the Big Bang is meaningless—like asking what is south of the South Pole—because there is no notion of time available to refer to. The concept of time only exists within our universe.” The “no-boundary proposal” is a classic example of a device called in Latin, Deus ex machina—God from the machine, invented by the ancient Greek dramatists Aeschylus and Euripides. The primary purpose of the device was to resolve the irresolvable. The question of what came before the Big Bang is not meaningless. We cannot accept that our Big Bang is the beginning of all existence. Since there is "no notion of time available to refer to," that does not mean there is nothing to refer to. This reasoning is a logical fallacy based on the idea that there should be nothing to refer to if there is no time to refer to it. This kind of reasoning falsifies reality to fit the argument. For this statement to be accurate, there must be proof that there is nothing to refer to, not "no notion of time to refer to." The lack of notion of time to refer to or its availability is not proof that there is nothing to refer to, but only that there is no notion of time to refer to and that it is not available. The lack of availability is only proof that something is not available to someone but not proof that nothing exists beyond the “point” where “time” stops. If Something, the Being, the Universal Source of Everything, is not available or approachable in any way by some particular scientist, that does not mean that the Universal Source of Everything (the Absolute) does not exist beyond the physical world. In this sense, the no-boundary proposal is a boundary proposal of a different kind. Since it is impossible to speculate about abstract concepts or ideas, such as God, Absolute, or Universal Source, it is easier to invent some trick (pardon my language), with all due respect, to compensate for the lack of understanding of the most abstract ideas and to compensate for the limitations of a frame of mind of any particular scientist or philosopher. In this case, the no-boundary proposal precisely serves the purpose of a boundary—to limit the world to the point where “time stops” and declare that there is nothing beyond because time stops there. That should mean that the laws of nature and science stop at this artificially produced boundary. But what do we have as proof that this is true? Precisely like in religions, we have words that sound seductively beautiful and convincing. Also, to a large extent, these words are supported by scientific knowledge and investigation. Yet, they are just words, and in no way do they prove that there is no immaterial Universal Source beyond the “point” where time stops.

Chapter 11—The Call of Abraham After the dispersion from Babel idolatry again became well-nigh universal, and the Lord finally left the hardened transgressors to follow their evil ways, while he chose Abraham, of the line of Shem, and made him the keeper of his law for future generations. Abraham had grown up in the midst of superstition and heathenism. Even his father’s household, by whom the knowledge of God had been preserved, were yielding to the seductive influences surrounding them, and they “served other gods” than Jehovah. But the true faith was not to become extinct. God has ever preserved a remnant to serve him. Adam, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, Shem, in unbroken line, had preserved from age to age the precious revealings of his will. The son of Terah became the inheritor of this holy trust. Idolatry invited him on every side, but in vain. Faithful among the faithless, uncorrupted by the prevailing apostasy, he steadfastly adhered to the worship of the one true God. “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.” Psalm 145:18. He communicated his will to Abraham, and gave him a distinct knowledge of the requirements of his law and of the salvation that would be accomplished through Christ. There was given to Abraham the promise, especially dear to the people of that age, of a numerous posterity and of national greatness: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.” And to this was added the assurance, precious above every other to the inheritor of faith, that of his line the Redeemer of the world should come: “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Yet, as the first condition of fulfillment, there was to be a test of faith; a sacrifice was demanded. [126]

The myth of choice here is seductive, but it should be resisted. African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically higher rates for precisely the same conduct. In fact, studies suggest that white professionals may be the most likely of any group to have engaged in illegal drug activity in their lifetime, yet they are the least likely to be made criminals.52 The prevalence of illegal drug activity among all racial and ethnic groups creates a situation in which, due to limited law enforcement resources and political constraints, some people are made criminals while others are not. Black people have been made criminals by the War on Drugs to a degree that dwarfs its effect on other racial and ethnic groups, especially whites.

Youths should study,' grumbled the Old Woman, 'and not take the laws apart. And you, dear Youth, before you become acquainted with the Beautiful Woman, take a good look into her Garden through the window tomorrow morning, when everything is clearly and genuinely visible in the light of the sun. You will see that in the Garden there are no flowers which are familiar to anyone here, and only such flowers as none of us in the City know. Just think about this carefully, after all, there is something strange about it. The devil is cunning; is this not his creation for the damnation of people?' ("The Poison Garden")

Rebellious"™ You're a barefoot odyssey, perched on a granite counter. Perched on edgeless intensity and arched reasoning. Why do I succumb to valiant persuasions? Just shatter me with your mammoth reality, break me into shards you think will clatter. But, I'm not made of material gravity I'm a symphony of notes looking to burst free! Call me lyrical, call it mercy, call this poetic justice and end my dispassionate existence so criminal. Bang your gavel against my criminalistic loins, I'm guilty of animalistic tendencies and tamed to humanoid inadequacies. I can shatter you in all aspects, and put you back in form in all retrospectives. I do not care to mold you into material to use as an art plateau. My hilly curves canvas's your mighty sword, burst free! Sing to me! Write me your lies. I beckon to endure your truths passionately, injustice webbed upon us is it poetic? Or law abiding? Where will it begin? Where will it end? Time has frozen around me, and all I can think of is this consumption of you. Wholely intoxicating, and wholely seductive. And I can't decide; When your limbs are apart and pinned displayed like a canvas to be ravaged, will you be entirely vulnerable to my demonstrations? Or will you swallow me whole? Swallow you, wallow in you... I'm invaded by your touch. Caught up! Caught up! Caught up! So caught up to us. I say; just lay down my body, tie up my mind, spank my assets, kisses so low and divine. This hasn't yet fully begun, and for sure won't end soon. So meet in our place of desire this noon, when footsteps cross the moon. Darkness descends during daylight when I draw the curtains tight, shutting out the world that claims our time. Now you're mine, you can't escape me, you can't escape this! I won't let you! Now you're a convoluted odyssey subdued by ministration firm, tender, meticulous, smitten, sensitized and shackled. You're a richly tainted taste of sin. A resolute candle of insatiable inspiration. Whose wick lit quick, whose burn smoulders on. Lights out, darkness nears and you burn within me. If I'm a sin, get on bended knees. Prey on me, and you're forgiven. To hell with Mary I want to cum quick see? Rebel no more, we've found retribution! Call it retribution, call it mercy, call this poetic justice, call this confession. I want the marks of your claws to escort me out the door. I want the ruthless indulgence of rebellion tattooed across your psyche! Exhale my name, and blow the flame out! I'll lay and lay som more, till the next time my rebellious lover comes through the door...

The human that depended on focused attention for its survival now becomes the distracted scanning animal, unable to think in depth, yet unable to depend on instincts. It is the height of stupidity to believe that in the course of your short life, your few decades of consciousness, you can somehow rewire the configurations of your brain through technology and wishful thinking, overcoming the effect of six million years of development.

Instead, you must value learning above everything else.

This is Radical Exoticism: the rule governing the world. It is not a law, for the law is the universal principle of understanding, the regulated interplay of differences, moral, political and economic rationality. It is a rule - and, like all rules, implies an arbitrary predestination. Consider languages, none of which is reducible to any other. Languages are predestined, each according to its own rules, its own arbitrary determinants, its own implacable logic. Each obeys the laws of communication and exchange, certainly, but at the same time it answers to an indestructible internal coherence; a language as such is, and must forever remain, fundamentally untranslatable into any other language. This explains why all languages are so 'beautiful' - precisely because they are foreign to one another. A law is never ineluctable: it is a concept, founded upon a consensus. A rule, by contrast, is indeed ineluctable, because it is not a concept but a form that orders a game. Seduction illustrates this well. Eros is love - the force of attraction, of fusion, of conjunction. Seduction is the far more radical figure of disjunction, distraction, illusion and diversion, a figure that alters essence and meaning, alters identity and the subject. And, contrary to common belief, entropy is on the side not of universal disjunction but of conjunction and fusion, of love and understanding - on the side of the proper use of differences. Seduction - exoticism - is an excess of the other, of otherness, the vertiginous appeal of what is 'more different than different' : this is what is irreducible - and this is the true source of energy. In this predestined world of the Other, everything comes from elsewhere - happy or unhappy events, illnesses, even thoughts themselves. All imperatives flow from the non-human - from gods, beasts, spirits, magic. This is a universe of fatality, not of psychology. According to Julia Kristeva we become estranged from ourselves by internalizing the other, and this estrangement from ourselves takes the form - among others - of the unconscious. But in the world of fatality the unconscious does not exist. There is no universal form of the unconscious, as psychoanalysis claims, and the only alternative to unconscious repression is fatality - the imputation of everything to a completely nonhuman agency, an agency which is external to the human and delivers us from it.

The hyperfeminine woman will often be concealing a great deal of repressed anger and resentment at the role she has been forced to play. Her seductive, girlish behavior with men is actually a ploy for power, to tease, entrap, and hurt the target. Her masculine side will leak out in passive-aggressive behavior, attempts to dominate people in relationships in underhanded ways. Underneath the sweet, deferential façade, she can be quite willful and highly judgmental of others. Her willfulness, always under the surface, will come out in rather irrational stubbornness in petty matters.

It’s a pain that we don’t discuss or even understand.

If it is money and comfort that dominate our decision, we are most often acting out of anxiety and the need to please our parents. They may steer us toward something lucrative out of care and concern, but lurking underneath this can be something else—perhaps a bit of envy that we have more freedom than they had when they were young. Your strategy must be twofold: First, to realize as early as possible that you have chosen your career for the wrong reasons, before your confidence takes a hit. And second, to actively rebel against those forces that have pushed you away from your true path. Scoff at the need for attention and approval—they will lead you astray. Feel some anger and resentment at the parental forces that want to foist upon you an alien vocation. It is a healthy part of your development to follow a path independent of your parents and to establish your own identity. Let your sense of rebellion fill you with energy and purpose. Daily Law: If you’re on the false path, get off. Find energy in rebellion.

time. There seems to be no defining purpose to our lives. We are perhaps not conscious of this emptiness, but it infects us in all kinds of ways. Feeling that we are called to accomplish something is the most positive way for us to supply this sense of purpose and direction. It is a religious-like quest for each of us. This quest should not be seen as selfish or antisocial. It is in fact connected to something much larger than our individual lives. Our evolution as a species has depended on the creation of a tremendous diversity of skills and ways of thinking.

Like Roach, you don’t want to abandon the skills and experience you have gained, but to find a new way to apply them.