Nowadays Related Quotes

Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. No, no, I was neither. Ladies and gentleman of the jury, the majority of sex offenders that hanker for some throbbing, sweet-moaning, physical but not necessarily coital, relation with a girl-child, are innocuous, inadequate, passive, timid strangers who merely ask the community to allow them to pursue their practically harmless, so-called aberrant behavior, their little hot wet private acts of sexual deviation without the police and society cracking down upon them. We are not sex fiends! We do not rape as good soldiers do. We are unhappy, mild, dog-eyed gentlemen, sufficiently well integrated to control our urge in the presence of adults, but ready to give years and years of life for one chance to touch a nymphet. Emphatically, no killers are we. Poets never kill.

OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything. What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them. Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to. A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys. But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man. When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this: “You are not enough people!” I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who has six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family. They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty it was, or handsome. Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby?

Readers who were born postmillennium might not understand the fuss, but trust me, this was a goddamned miracle. Nowadays, connectivity is just presumed. Smartphones, laptops, desktops, everything’s connected, always. Connected to what exactly? How? It doesn’t matter. You just tap the icon your older relatives call “the Internet button” and boom, you’ve got it: the news, pizza delivery, streaming music, and streaming video that we used to call TV and movies. Back then, however, we walked uphill both ways, to and from school, and plugged our modems directly into the wall, with manly twelve-year-old hands.

No one cares about distant relatives nowadays. They went out of fashion years ago.

The main reason for the terrible cruelty between men today, apart from the absence religion, is still the refined complexity of life which shields people from the consequences of their actions. However cruel Attila, Genghis Khan and their followers may have been, the act of killing people personally, face to face, must have been unpleasant: the wailing relatives and the presence of the corpses. And thus their cruelty was restrained. Nowadays we kill people through such a complex process of communication, and the consequences of our cruelty are so carefully removed and concealed from us, that there is no restraint on the bestiality of the action.

What fascinates me in dreams is the idea that they emanate from our subconscious. I think that there are many possibilities to interpret dreams but a great deal of mystery always remains. When a dream is explained to us, it’s necessary to know the personal context of the subject. For example, what his childhood was like, his adolescence, his interpersonal relations. You’ve got to understand all these elements in order to tally up the dream and to decode it. At the cinema, that can’t happen because the approach demands the introduction of too many elements. In order for viewers to identify with this dream, I chose a parade which makes one think automatically of other common dreams and unconscious states. There are very old characters like objects that are discarded by people today or religious symbols that people have forgotten. I think that even nowadays, people have forgotten the importance of dreams.

Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-Earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of the Earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-Earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long.

The notion of carefully wrought bullshit involves, then, a certain inner strain. Thoughtful attention to detail requires discipline and objectivity. It entails accepting standards and limitations that forbid the indulgence of impulse or whim. It is this selflessness that, in connection with bullshit, strikes us as inapposite. But in fact it is not out of the question at all. The realms of advertising and of public relations, and the nowadays closely related realm of politics, are replete with instances of bullshit so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept. And in these realms there are exquisitely sophisticated craftsmen who - with the help of advanced and demanding techniques of market research, of public opinion polling, of psychological testing, and so forth - dedicate themselves tirelessly to getting every word and image they produce exactly right.

The relations individuals enter into with other individuals nowadays have been described as ‘pure’ – meaning ‘no strings attached’, no unconditional obligations assumed and so no predetermination, and therefore no mortgaging, of the future. The sole foundation and only reason for the relationship to continue is, it has been said, the amount of mutual satisfaction drawn from it.

Nowadays, some 60–70 percent of our clients turn to us as PR consultants—and it seems to be exactly the same everywhere in the world—for two main reasons: crisis management and reputation management.

Slavery may change its form or its name—its essence remains the same. Its essence may be expressed in these words: to be a slave is to he forced to work for someone else, just as to he a master is to live on someone else's work In antiquity, just as in Asia and in Africa today, as well as even in a part of America, slaves were, in all honesty, called slaves. In the Middle Ages, they took the name of serfs: nowadays they are called wage earners. The position of tins latter group has a great deal more dignity attached to it, and it is less hard than that of slaves, but they are nonetheless forced, by hunger as well as by political and social institutions, to maintain other people in complete or relative idleness, through their own exceedingly hard labor. Consequently they arc slaves. And in general, no state, ancient or modern, has ever managed or will ever manage to get along without the forced labor of the masses, either wage earners or slaves, as a principal and absolutely necessary foundation for the leisure, the liberty, and the civilization of the political class—the citizens.

There has been amazingly little opposition to most of the encroachments of ecclesiastical interests. One reason for this seems to be the widespread belief that religion is nowadays mild and tolerant and that persecutions are a thing of the past. This is a dangerous illusion. While many religious leaders are undoubtedly genuine friends of freedom and toleration and are furthermore confirmed believers in the separation of Church and State, there are unfortunately many others who would still persecute if they could and who do persecute when they can.

Most people nowadays would not consider love as related in any way to truth. Love is seen as an experience associated with the world of fleeting emotions, no longer with truth. But is this an adequate description of love? Love cannot be reduced to an ephemeral emotion. True, it engages our affectivity, but in order to open it to the beloved and thus to blaze a trail leading away from self-centredness and towards another person, in order to build a lasting relationship; love aims at union with the beloved. Here we begin to see how love requires truth. Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life. Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or redeem it from the fleeting moment in order to create life and bear fruit.

Thus they did not do, as many unfortunately do nowadays in Christendom. When the ancient miracles of God are related, they say, "Now God doe no more miracles." Unbelieving nominal Christians speak thus; but true Christians do not say this but show that they believe in the God who wrought miracles in olden days.

Adventure is a great thing," said Simple, "which should be in everybody's life. According to 'The Late Late Show' on TV, in the old days when Americans headed West in covered wagons, they was almost sure to run into adventure--at the very least a battle with the Red Skins. Nowadays, if you want to run into adventure, go to Alabama or Mississippi, where you can battle with the White Skins.

Like I told you, Sam and Patrick love their big song, so I thought I'd read it to have something to discuss with them. In the end, the magazine compared him with John Lennon from the Beatles. I told that to Sam later, and she got really mad. She said he was like Jim Morrison if he was like anybody, but really, he isn't like anybody but himself. We were all at the Big Boy after Rocky Horror, and it started this big discussion. Craig said the problem with things is that everyone is always comparing everyone with everyone and because of that, it discredits people, like in his photography classes. Bob said that it was all about our parents not wanting to let go of their youth and how it kills them when they can't relate to something. Patrick said that the problem was that since everything has happened already, it makes it hard to break new ground. Nobody can be as big as the Beatles because the Beatles already gave it a "context." The reason they were so big is that they had no one to compare themselves with, so the sky was the limit. Sam added that nowadays a band or someone would compare themselves to the Beatles after the second album, and their own personal voice would be less from that moment on.

The realms of advertising and of public relations, and the nowadays closely related realm of politics, are replete with instances of bullshit so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept. And in these realms there are exquisitely sophisticated craftsmen who — with the help of advanced and demanding techniques of market research, of public opinion polling, of psychological testing, and so forth - dedicate themselves tirelessly to getting every word and image they produce exactly right.

Instead of animals, we can offer our own life-force energy to the gods in the form of spiritual vows. A typical modern Hindu vow, for example, may consist of intense fasts, lengthy meditations, mantra recitations, abstinence of sex, or other types of vows that can last from 40 days to one year or more. In other words, nowadays, our own time and energy are far more valuable to us than the relatively easily acquired flesh of animals which can be found on every street corner. Regardless of the source, spiritual sacrifice is the fee we give to the gods in exchange for their help in transforming energy into the form we desire.

I can't get over the fact that Descartes compared the human body to a machine or an automaton." "The comparison was based on the fact that people in his time were deeply fascinated by machines and the workings of clocks, which appeared to have the ability to function of their own accord. The word 'automaton' means precisely that -- something that moves of its own accord. It was obviously only an illusion that they moved of their own accord. An astronomical clock, for instance, is both constructed and wound up by human hands. Descartes made a point of the fact that ingenious inventions of that kind were actually assembled very simply from a relatively small number of parts compared with the vast number of bones, muscles, nerves, veins and arteries that the human and the animal body consists of. Why should God not be able to make an animal or a human body based on mechanical laws?" "Nowadays there is a lot of talk about 'artificial intelligence'." "Yes, that is the automaton of our time...

Those who nowadays see inconveniences to living in this laboratory often come up against the incomprehension and disapproval of their peers. They are accused of opposing the technological society on which they are nonetheless dependent and the comforts of which they enjoy—even if this argument is losing credence as the effects of the ecological crisis become ever more direct and flagrant. This logic follows the same pattern as attempts to silence patients criticizing the medical system on the pretext that their health and sometimes their lives depend on it. We are thus to be neutralized by guilt and condemned to submission and resignation. Can we be held responsible for the society into which we were born and in relation to which our room for maneuver is inevitably limited? To use this as grounds to ban all critique of our society amounts to tying our hands in the face of disaster, hamstringing thought and, more broadly, stifling imagination, desire and the capacity to recall that things are not doomed to be as they currently are.

Money has an even darker side. For although money builds universal trust between strangers, this trust is invested not in humans, communities or sacred values, but in money itself and in the impersonal systems that back it. We do not trust the stranger, or the next-door neighbour – we trust the coin they hold. If they run out of coins, we run out of trust. As money brings down the dams of community, religion and state, the world is in danger of becoming one big and rather heartless marketplace. Hence the economic history of humankind is a delicate dance. People rely on money to facilitate cooperation with strangers, but they’re afraid it will corrupt human values and intimate relations. With one hand people willingly destroy the communal dams that held at bay the movement of money and commerce for so long. Yet with the other hand they build new dams to protect society, religion and the environment from enslavement to market forces. It is common nowadays to believe that the market always prevails, and that the dams erected by kings, priests and communities cannot long hold back the tides of money. This is naive. Brutal warriors, religious fanatics and concerned citizens have repeatedly managed to trounce calculating merchants, and even to reshape the economy. It is therefore impossible to understand the unification of humankind as a purely economic process. In order to understand how thousands of isolated cultures coalesced over time to form the global village of today, we must take into account the role of gold and silver, but we cannot disregard the equally crucial role of steel.

Andrei Yanuaryevich (one longs to blurt out, “Jaguaryevich”) Vyshinsky, availing himself of the most flexible dialectics (of a sort nowadays not permitted either Soviet citizens or electronic calculators, since to them yes is yes and no is no), pointed out in a report which became famous in certain circles that it is never possible for mortal men to establish absolute truth, but relative truth only. He then proceeded to a further step, which jurists of the last two thousand years had not been willing to take: that the truth established by interrogation and trial could not be absolute, but only, so to speak, relative. Therefore, when we sign a sentence ordering someone to be shot we can never be absolutely certain, but only approximately, in view of certain hypotheses, and in a certain sense, that we are punishing a guilty person. Thence arose the most practical conclusion: that it was useless to seek absolute evidence-for evidence is always relative-or unchallengeable witnesses-for they can say different things at different times. The proofs of guilt were relative, approximate, and the interrogator could find them, even when there was no evidence and no witness, without leaving his office, “basing his conclusions not only on his own intellect but also on his Party sensitivity, his moral forces” (in other words, the superiority of someone who has slept well, has been well fed, and has not been beaten up) “and on his character” (i.e., his willingness to apply cruelty!)… In only one respect did Vyshinsky fail to be consistent and retreat from dialectical logic: for some reason, the executioner’s bullet which he allowed was not relative but absolute…

According to this view the present state of our warring capacities would not be a state of culture, but only a stage on the way. Opinions will, of course, be divided about this, for by culture one man will understand a state of collective culture, while another will regard this state merely as civilization8 and will expect of culture the sterner demands of individual development. Schiller is, however, mistaken when he allies himself exclusively with the second standpoint and contrasts our collective culture unfavourably with that of the individual Greek, since he overlooks the defectiveness of the civilization of that time, which makes the unlimited validity of that culture very questionable. Hence no culture is ever really complete, for it always swings towards one side or the other. Sometimes the cultural ideal is extraverted, and the chief value then lies with the object and man’s relation to it: sometimes it is introverted, and the chief value lies with subject and his relation to the idea. In the former case, culture takes on a collective character, in the latter an individual one. It is therefore easy to understand how under the influence of Christianity, whose principle is Christian love (and by counter-association, also its counterpart, the violation of individuality), a collective culture came about in which the individual is liable to be swallowed up because individual values are depreciated on principle. Hence there arose in the age of the German classicists that extraordinary yearning for the ancient world which for them was a symbol of individual culture, and on that account was for the most part very much overvalued and often grossly idealized. Not a few attempts were even made to imitate or recapture the spirit of Greece, attempts which nowadays appear to us somewhat silly, but must none the less be appreciated as forerunners of an individual culture.

It turns out that in that terrible year Andrei Yanuaryevich (one longs to blurt out, “Jaguaryevich”) Vyshinsky, availing himself of the most flexible dialectics (of a sort nowadays not permitted either Soviet citizens or electronic calculators, since to them yes is yes and no is no), pointed out in a report which became famous in certain circles that it is never possible for mortal men to establish absolute truth, but relative truth only. He then proceeded to a further step, which jurists of the last two thousand years had not been willing to take: that the truth established by interrogation and trial could not be absolute, but only, so to speak, relative. Therefore, when we sign a sentence ordering someone to be shot we can never be absolutely certain, but only approximately, in view of certain hypotheses, and in a certain sense, that we are punishing a guilty person. Thence arose the most practical conclusion: that it was useless to seek absolute evidence—for evidence is always relative—or unchallengeable witnesses—for they can say different things at different times. The proofs of guilt were relative, approximate, and the interrogator could find them, even when there was no evidence and no witness, without leaving his office, “basing his conclusions not only on his own intellect but also on his Party sensitivity, his moral forces” (in other words, the superiority of someone who has slept well, has been well fed, and has not been beaten up) “and on his character” (i.e., his willingness to apply cruelty!). In only one respect did Vyshinsky fail to be consistent and retreat from dialectical logic: for some reason, the executioner’s bullet which he allowed was not relative but absolute. . . . Thus it was that the conclusions of advanced Soviet jurisprudence, proceeding in a spiral, returned to barbaric or medieval standards. Like medieval torturers, our interrogators, prosecutors, and judges agreed to accept the confession of the accused as the chief proof of guilt.

329 Leisure and Idleness. - There is an Indian savagery, a savagery peculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the Americans strive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work- the characteristic vice of the New World-already begins to infect old Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange lack of intellectuality. One is now ashamed of repose: even long reflection almost causes remorse of conscience. Thinking is done with a stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial newspaper; we live like men who are continually " afraid of letting opportunities slip." " Better do anything whatever, than nothing "-this principle also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste may be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this hurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye for the melody of movement, also disappear. The proof of this is the clumsy perspicuity which is now everywhere demanded in all positions where a person would like to be sincere with his fellows, in intercourse with friends, women, relatives, children, teachers, pupils, leaders and princes,-one has no longer either time or energy for ceremonies, for roundabout courtesies, for any esprit in conversation, or for any otium whatever. For life in the hunt for gain continually compels a person to consume his intellect, even to exhaustion, in constant dissimulation, overreaching, or forestalling: the real virtue nowadays is to do something in a shorter time than another person. And so there are only rare hours of sincere intercourse permitted: in them, however, people are tired, and would not only like " to let themselves go," but to stretch their legs out wide in awkward style. The way people write their letters nowadays is quite in keeping with the age; their style and spirit will always be the true " sign of the times." If there be still enjoyment in society and in art, it is enjoyment such as over-worked slaves provide for themselves. Oh, this moderation in "joy" of our cultured and uncultured classes! Oh, this increasing suspiciousness of all enjoyment! Work is winning over more and more the good conscience to its side: the desire for enjoyment already calls itself " need of recreation," and even begins to be ashamed of itself. " One owes it to one's health," people say, when they are caught at a picnic. Indeed, it might soon go so far that one could not yield to the desire for the vita contemplativa (that is to say, excursions with thoughts and friends), without self-contempt and a bad conscience.-Well! Formerly it was the very reverse: it was "action" that suffered from a bad conscience. A man of good family concealed his work when need compelled him to labour. The slave laboured under the weight of the feeling that he did something contemptible :- the "doing" itself was something contemptible. "Only in otium and bellum is there nobility and honour:" so rang the voice of ancient prejudice !

Given that at all times, so long as there have been human beings, there have also been herds of human beings (racial groups, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches) and always a great many followers in relation to the small number of those issuing orders―and taking into consideration also that so far nothing has been better and longer practised and cultivated among human beings than obedience, we can reasonably assume that typically now the need for obedience is inborn in each individual, as a sort of formal conscience which states "You are to do something or other without conditions, and leave aside something else without conditions," in short, "Thou shalt." This need seeks to satisfy itself and to fill its form with some content. Depending on its strength, impatience, and tension, it seizes on something, without being very particular, like a coarse appetite, and accepts what someone or other issuing commands―parents, teachers, laws, class biases, public opinion―shouts in people's ears. The curiously limitation of human development―the way it hesitates, takes so long, often regresses, and turns around on itself―is based on the fact that the herd instinct of obedience is passed on best and at the expense of the art of commanding. If we imagine this instinct at some point striding right to its ultimate excess, then there would finally be a total lack of commanders and independent people, or they would suffer inside from a bad conscience and find it necessary first to prepare a deception for themselves in order to be able to command, as if they, too, were only obeying orders. This condition is what, in fact, exists nowadays in Europe: I call it the moral hypocrisy of those in command. They don't know how to protect themselves from their bad conscience except by behaving as if they were carrying out older or higher orders (from ancestors, the constitution, rights, law, or even God), or they even borrow herd maxims from the herd way of thinking, for example, as "the first servant of their people" or as "tools of the common good." On the other hand, the herd man in Europe today makes himself appear as if he is the single kind of human being allowed, and he glorifies those characteristics of his thanks to which he is tame, good natured, and useful to the herd, as the really human virtues, that is, public spiritedness, wishing everyone well, consideration, diligence, moderation, modesty, forbearance, and pity. For those cases, however, where people believe they cannot do without a leader and bell wether, they make attempt after attempt to replace the commander by adding together collections of clever herd people All the representative constitutional assemblies, for example, have this origin. But for all that, what a blissful relief, what a release from a pressure which is growing unbearable is the appearance of an absolute commander for these European herd animals. The effect which the appearance of Napoleon made was the most recent major evidence for that:―the history of the effect of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher happiness which this entire century derived from its most valuable men and moments.

Given that at all times, so long as there have been human beings, there have also been herds of human beings (racial groups, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches) and always a great many followers in relation to the small number of those issuing orders - and taking into consideration also that so far nothing has been better and longer practised and cultivated among human beings than obedience, we can reasonably assume that typically now the need for obedience is inborn in each individual, as a sort of formal conscience which states "You are to do something or other without conditions, and leave aside something else without conditions," in short, "Thou shalt." This need seeks to satisfy itself and to fill its form with some content. Depending on its strength, impatience, and tension, it seizes on something, without being very particular, like a coarse appetite, and accepts what someone or other issuing commands - parents, teachers, laws, class biases, public opinion - shouts in people's ears. The curiously limitation of human development - the way it hesitates, takes so long, often regresses, and turns around on itself - is based on the fact that the herd instinct of obedience is passed on best and at the expense of the art of commanding. If we imagine this instinct at some point striding right to its ultimate excess, then there would finally be a total lack of commanders and independent people, or they would suffer inside from a bad conscience and find it necessary first to prepare a deception for themselves in order to be able to command, as if they, too, were only obeying orders. This condition is what, in fact, exists nowadays in Europe: I call it the moral hypocrisy of those in command. They don't know how to protect themselves from their bad conscience except by behaving as if they were carrying out older or higher orders (from ancestors, the constitution, rights, law, or even God), or they even borrow herd maxims from the herd way of thinking, for example, as "the first servant of their people" or as "tools of the common good." On the other hand, the herd man in Europe today makes himself appear as if he is the single kind of human being allowed, and he glorifies those characteristics of his thanks to which he is tame, good natured, and useful to the herd, as the really human virtues, that is, public spiritedness, wishing everyone well, consideration, diligence, moderation, modesty, forbearance, and pity. For those cases, however, where people believe they cannot do without a leader and bell wether, they make attempt after attempt to replace the commander by adding together collections of clever herd people All the representative constitutional assemblies, for example, have this origin. But for all that, what a blissful relief, what a release from a pressure which is growing unbearable is the appearance of an absolute commander for these European herd animals. The effect which the appearance of Napoleon made was the most recent major evidence for that: - the history of the effect of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher happiness which this entire century derived from its most valuable men and moments.

Since, however, darwinism has once for all displaced design from the minds of the 'scientific,' theism has lost that foothold; and some kind of an immanent or pantheistic deity working IN things rather than above them is, if any, the kind recommended to our contemporary imagination. Aspirants to a philosophic religion turn, as a rule, more hopefully nowadays towards idealistic pantheism than towards the older dualistic theism, in spite of the fact that the latter still counts able defenders. But, as I said in my first lecture, the brand of pantheism offered is hard for them to assimilate if they are lovers of facts, or empirically minded. It is the absolutistic brand, spurning the dust and reared upon pure logic. It keeps no connexion whatever with concreteness. Affirming the Absolute Mind, which is its substitute for God, to be the rational presupposition of all particulars of fact, whatever they may be, it remains supremely indifferent to what the particular facts in our world actually are. Be they what they may, the Absolute will father them. Like the sick lion in Esop's fable, all footprints lead into his den, but nulla vestigia retrorsum. You cannot redescend into the world of particulars by the Absolute's aid, or deduce any necessary consequences of detail important for your life from your idea of his nature. He gives you indeed the assurance that all is well with Him, and for his eternal way of thinking; but thereupon he leaves you to be finitely saved by your own temporal devices. Far be it from me to deny the majesty of this conception, or its capacity to yield religious comfort to a most respectable class of minds. But from the human point of view, no one can pretend that it doesn't suffer from the faults of remoteness and abstractness. It is eminently a product of what I have ventured to call the rationalistic temper. It disdains empiricism's needs. It substitutes a pallid outline for the real world's richness. It is dapper; it is noble in the bad sense, in the sense in which to be noble is to be inapt for humble service. In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as a presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman. His menial services are needed in the dust of our human trials, even more than his dignity is needed in the empyrean. Now pragmatism, devoted tho she be to facts, has no such materialistic bias as ordinary empiricism labors under. Moreover, she has no objection whatever to the realizing of abstractions, so long as you get about among particulars with their aid and they actually carry you somewhere. Interested in no conclusions but those which our minds and our experiences work out together, she has no a priori prejudices against theology. IF THEOLOGICAL IDEAS PROVE TO HAVE A VALUE FOR CONCRETE LIFE, THEY WILL BE TRUE, FOR PRAGMATISM, IN THE SENSE OF BEING GOOD FOR SO MUCH. FOR HOW MUCH MORE THEY ARE TRUE, WILL DEPEND ENTIRELY ON THEIR RELATIONS TO THE OTHER TRUTHS THAT ALSO HAVE TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED.

Before all else, it is certain that the radical and ultimate cause of the evils which We deplore in modern society is the denial and rejection of a universal norm of morality as well for individual and social life as for international relations; We mean the disregard, so common nowadays, and the forgetfulness of the natural law itself, which has its foundation in God, Almighty Creator and Father of all, supreme and absolute Lawgiver, all-wise and just Judge of human actions. When God is hated, every basis of morality is undermined” (SP 28). Pius XII was already confronted with the beginnings of the problems with which we are familiar: the denial of God and moral relativism.

The 'Trinity' resembles nothing but the perpetuation of the Aryan heritage of the 'Trimurti' and 'Trismegistus', where conformal mapping is applied to guarantee the preservation of local angles between lines even though the final shape and its curvature are molded anew. After all, sculpturing gods is precisely that what Polytheists do. Numbers are modeled using mathematical relations so begin to construe. It is manifested nowadays in the Pauline Christian and Jew.

According to Gibbon, Roman society began to fall apart after marriage lost its value in the culture, and promiscuity became widespread. Divorce became common, families were fractured and then other social institutions also began to break down. Basically, without the dominance of what we call 'the traditional family,' cultures break down and eventually collapse.” “Isn't that a little bigoted? I mean, nowadays, a lot of people feel that there are many different variations of 'family' and all of them basically valid.” “History done right is a bigoted discipline.” Leyla took the glass of water. She sipped it and then winked at me. “This is good. We need a good intellectual discussion right now. So how is history bigoted?” “I guess what I mean is, it shows things as they really are, or were, rather. Nowadays we maintain all choices for family units are equal. We try to pretend that all beliefs and practices are neutral in relation to each other. But history tells a different story. It shows us that not all beliefs and practices are equal in terms of their effects on people. Some things really are better than others. Democracy really is better than Nazism and Communism. Capitalism, for all its faults, really has benefited far more people than socialism. And, according to convincing arguments from people like Edward Gibbon, society really is better off when traditional marriage and morality are valued, as opposed to when they aren't. It isn't just a religious thing either – Gibbon was not a Christian himself. It's just the bigoted historical fact.

One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it. Let’s take another familiar example from our own time. Over the last few decades, we have invented countless time-saving devices that are supposed to make life more relaxed – washing machines, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, telephones, mobile phones, computers, email. Previously it took a lot of work to write a letter, address and stamp an envelope, and take it to the mailbox. It took days or weeks, maybe even months, to get a reply. Nowadays I can dash off an email, send it halfway around the globe, and (if my addressee is online) receive a reply a minute later. I’ve saved all that trouble and time, but do I live a more relaxed life? Sadly not. Back in the snail-mail era, people usually only wrote letters when they had something important to relate. Rather than writing the first thing that came into their heads, they considered carefully what they wanted to say and how to phrase it. They expected to receive a similarly considered answer. Most people wrote and received no more than a handful of letters a month and seldom felt compelled to reply immediately. Today I receive dozens of emails each day, all from people who expect a prompt reply. We thought we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of life to ten times its former speed and made our days more anxious and agitated.

Why the us government Should Maintain students Healthcare Claims education and learning is probably the finest ventures in ensuring the people stay a greater existence from the contemporary setting. Over time, education and learning methods have transformed to guarantee individuals gain access to it in the very best ways. Besides, the adjustment can be a purposeful relocate making sure that learning meets pupils distinct needs nowadays. Consequently, any country that is focused on establishing in the current technical period must be ready to devote in schooling no matter what. We appreciate that lots of claims have was able to meet the most affordable threshold in offering secondary and basic education. It is actually commendable for schooling is focused and attends on the needs in the present environment. In addition to, we certainly have observed reduced rates of dropouts due to correct education and learning systems into position. Nevertheless, it is not enough because there are many other factors that, in turn, lower the superiority of education. We appreciate the reality that educational costs is mainly purchased and virtually totally given through the express or low-successful businesses. Sadly, small is defined in range to be sure the unique treatment of learners. It has led to the indiscriminate govt accountability. Apart from putting everything in place, the government must also provide the proper healthcare of a learner because it' s the foundation of excellent learning. The arranged provision of health care to students is defined around the periphery, plus it is amongst the essential things that degrade the grade of training. Standard attendance is actually a necessity for pupils to acquire much more and carry out greater. For that reason, government entities need to ensure an original set up of arranged healthcare to pupils to ensure they are certainly not stored away from university because of health care problems. Re-Analyzing the goal of Government in mastering It can be only by re-dealing with government entitiesAnd#039; s role in supplying primary and secondary education and learning that people can completely set up the skewed the outdoors of learner’s health care and the desire to influence the state to reconsider it. The cause of why the government must pay for the student’s healthcare is that its responsibility is unbalanced. It provides maintained to purchase basic training effectively but has did not shield the health-related requirements of any learner. Aside from, it is suitably interested in increasing the size of young menAnd#039; s and ladiesAnd#039; s chances in obtaining technical and professional education. But it has not searched for has and aims unacceptable method of achieving the medical care requirements of any learner. As a result, education require is not met because its services are skewed. The possible lack of equilibrium in government activities replicates the malfunction to discrete primarily sharply amid the steps right for authorities financing and activities to become implemented. Financing healthcare for students, which is equally essential, is neglected, though Financing education is largely accepted. For that reason, this is a deliberate demand government entities to perform the circle by paying for student' s health care. When there is stability in federal government commitments in education and learning, its requirements will probably be fulfilled. So, the state should pay for pupil' s medical care. If they are healthful, they find out better. In addition to, a large stress will probably be lifted, and will also unquestionably raise enrolment in professional coachingcenters and colleges, along with other studying companies.

Yet, at the end of the day, if TV cameras are brought under control, and the traditional media and even online media are under excessive pressure, social media cannot be controlled. This is where the true leaders of speech and communication emerge nowadays.

You’ll always get the kind of person who watches himself acting, who sees himself as if in some continuous performance. Who believes there’ll be witnesses to report his generous or contemptible death and that this is what matters most. Or who, if there are no witnesses, invents them — the eye of God, the world stage, or whatever. Who believes that the world only exists to the extent that it’s reported and events only to the extent that they’re recounted, even though it’s highly unlikely that anyone will bother to recount them, or to recount those particular facts, I mean, the facts relating to each individual. The vast majority of things simply happen and there neither is nor ever was any record of them, those we hear about are an infinitesimal fraction of what goes on. Most lives and, needless to say, most deaths, are forgotten as soon as they’ve occurred and leave not the slightest trace, or become unknown soon afterwards, after a few years, a few decades, a century, which, as you know, is, in reality, a very short time. Take battles, for example, think how important they were for those who took part in them and, sometimes, for their compatriots, think how many of those battles now mean nothing to us, not even their names, we don’t even know which war they belonged to, more than that, we don’t care. What do the names Ulundi and Beersheba, or Gravelotte and Rezonville, or Namur, or Maiwand, Paardeberg and Mafeking, or Mohacs, or Nájera, mean to anyone nowadays?’ — He mispronounced that last name, Nájera. — ‘But there are many others who resist, incapable of accepting their own insignificance or invisibility, I mean once they’re dead and converted into past matter, once they’re no longer present to defend their existence and to declare: “Hey, I’m here. I can intervene, I have influence, I can do good or cause harm, save or destroy, and even change the course of the world, because I haven’t yet disappeared.” — ‘I’m still here, therefore I must have been here before,

what the company said one year and what happened the next. We want to see not only whether managements are honest with shareholders but also whether they’re honest with themselves.” (If a company boss insists that all is hunky-dory when business is sputtering, watch out!) Nowadays, you can listen in on a company’s regularly scheduled conference calls even if you own only a few shares; to find out the schedule, call the investor relations department at corporate headquarters or visit the company’s website. Robert Rodriguez of FPA Capital Fund turns to the back page of the company’s annual report, where the heads of its operating divisions are listed. If there’s a lot of turnover in those names in the first one or two years of a new CEO’s regime, that’s probably a good sign; he’s cleaning out the dead wood. But if high turnover continues, the turnaround has probably devolved into turmoil.

The Four Dominant Learning Styles What are the Four Types of Learners? If you have spent any considerable amount of time in a learning institution, you know for almost a fact that each learner is different from the next. It is relatively easy to pick out the differences among learners. For instance, you can identify a student who has an easier time retaining information when presented in a particular format. Until recent decades, education seemed to be incredibly rigid towards the learners. Most often than not, they were subjected to a one-size-fits-all model that never accommodated for the differences in learning. However, research and studies made tremendous strides in identifying and reconciling these discrepancies. Nowadays, educators are developing strategies that help them reach out to each student's specific learning style. This gives each learner a fair chance at acquiring an education. This article seeks to breakdown the four main ways that learners acquire, process, and retain information. Visual Learners Information is optimally acquired and processed for this type of learners when conveyed in graphic or diagrammatic form. Such students retain content when it is presented as diagrams, charts, etcetera with much more ease. Some of them also lean towards pictures and videos at times. These learners tend to better at processing robust information rather than bits and pieces. This makes them holistic learners. Hence, they derive more value from summarized visual aids as opposed to segments. Auditory Learners On the other hand, these students learn more by processing information that has been delivered verbally. Such students are also more attentive to their instructors in class. Sometimes, they will do so at the expense of taking notes which can sometimes be mistaken for subpar engagement. Such learners will also thrive in group discussions where they get to talk through schoolwork with their peers. This not only reinforces their understanding but also presents an excellent opportunity to learn from others. Similarly, they can obtain significant value from reading out what they have written. Reading/Writing Learners These students lean more towards written information. For as long as they read through the content, they stand a better chance at retaining it. Such students prefer text-heavy learning. Thus, written assignments, handouts in class, or even taking notes are their most effective learning modes. Kinesthetic Learners Essentially, these students learn by doing. These are the students that rely on hands-on participation in class. For as long as they are physically proactive in the learning process, such learners stand a better chance at retaining and retrieving the knowledge acquired. This also earns them the popular term, tactile learners, since they tend to engage most of their sense in the learning process. As you would expect, such leaners have the most difficulties in conventional learning institutions. However, they tend to thrive in practical-oriented set-ups, such as workshops and laboratories. These four modalities will provide sufficient background knowledge on learning styles for you to formulate your own assessment. Ask yourself first, no less, what type of a learner are you?

What We Know For NBA 2K18 So Far One of the most valuable series of sport games of nowadays is, without a doubt, NBA 2K. As you can easily see from impressions of last year's edition NBA 2K18, the series has reached a simply brutal level so this 2017/18 edition will have an increased level of demand. NBA 2K18 still finds the first steps but has already received weight news. In recent years, the NBA 2K series has managed to become the most valuable game related to the biggest basketball competition in the world, the NBA. All those who follow the NBA minimally, will be accustomed to watching brutal television productions with high levels of spectacular and show-off. In fact, this can be confirmed today with the final of the current edition of this year. With 2K Games NBA 2K Games transposed in a very well achieved all this spectacular for the digital. However, it is not only this that the game feeds and another strong point of the game is the great diversity of modes that makes available to the player. This is both singleplayer and multiplayer. This year, however, the series will be back and with it comes an increased responsibility: to maintain the high levels of quality, increasing them even more. For now, little is known about NBA 2K18, but here's what we know. Firstly, NBA 2K18 already has a cover, you already have the player that will cover. It is Kyrie Irving, the player of the Cleveland Cavaliers that is to be the cover of the NBA 2K18 Standard Edition of this time. About the choice to fall on the cover of the game, Kyrie revealed that he feel a great honor at being chosen for the cover. Meanwhile, Shaquille O'Neal feels great pleasure as the cover of this year's Legend Edition. The pe-odering reward is huge, too. Then, NBA 2K18 will hit stores on September 19 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC. We hope that during the E3 of this year 2017 we know a little more about the innovations that are incorporated in the delivery of this year and we can enjoy its gameplay.

One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it. Let’s take another familiar example from our own time. Over the last few decades, we have invented countless time-saving devices that are supposed to make life more relaxed – washing machines, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, telephones, mobile phones, computers, email. Previously it took a lot of work to write a letter, address and stamp an envelope, and take it to the mailbox. It took days or weeks, maybe even months, to get a reply. Nowadays I can dash off an email, send it halfway around the globe, and (if my addressee is online) receive a reply a minute later. I’ve saved all that trouble and time, but do I live a more relaxed life? Sadly not. Back in the snail-mail era, people usually only wrote letters when they had something important to relate. Rather than writing the first thing that came into their heads, they considered carefully what they wanted to say and how to phrase it. They expected to receive a similarly considered answer. Most people wrote and received no more than a handful of letters a month and seldom felt compelled to reply immediately. Today I receive dozens of emails each day, all from people who expect a prompt reply. We thought we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of life to ten times its former speed and made our days more anxious and agitated. Here

Our fascination with the gothic peaks in times of anxiety, panic, and upheaval. The Victorian gothic revival of the 1890s was stoked by scientific, technological, and social change. Industrialization and urbanization sparked feelings of alienation. Darwin's theories of evolution and the changing roles of women fanned racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and colonialist fears of 'primitivism,' moral decay, and sexual depravity. In the nineteenth century, terror-inducing imagery had shifted away from crumbling castles to crime-infested cities, and fear of villains and ghosts was supplanted by a fear of madness and degeneration. In the twentieth century, we celebrated/mourned the death of authorship, of the grand narrative, of the self, 'going-one-better in eschatological eloquence,' as Jacques Derrida put it, 'the end of history...the end of subject, the end of man, the end of the West, the end of Oedipus, the end of the earth, Apocalypse Now.' A few years into the new millennium, we were zombie hordes, stalking social media for brains. The gothic is the fucked-either-way-and-freaking-the-fuck-out school of artistic interpretation, the hysterical framework of doom. And this tension between horror as morality tale and horror as decadent spectacle is, I believe, what fueled the pandemic of tabloid stories about wayward starlets that raged throughout 2006 and 2007. Celebrity train wreck stories begin, conservatively, as cautionary tales. A young woman, unprotected or legally emancipated, has moved alone from the relatively sheltered and secluded condition of parent-managed child stardom (because who, nowadays, is more cut off from the world than a child star?) into a corrupt and dangerous world, where her beauty, fame, youth, fortune, and sexual allure are regarded with a charged, ambivalent awe. She is instantly besieged with dangers, and preyed upon by unscrupulous adults. Until they can be contained again, by marriage or paternal protection, she exists in a constant state of uncertainty and peril. The peril is created, of course, by the 'author' - the media outlets that shape the train wreck's life, again and again, into thrilling, chilling tales of suspense.

Given the obvious “will to power” (as Friedrich Nietzsche called it) of the human race, the enormous energy put into its expression, the early emergence of hierarchies among children, and the childlike devastation of grown men who tumble from the top, I’m puzzled by the taboo with which our society surrounds this issue. Most psychology textbooks do not even mention power and dominance, except in relation to abusive relationships. Everyone seems in denial. In one study on the power motive, corporate managers were asked about their relationship with power. They did acknowledge the existence of a lust for power, but never applied it to themselves. They rather enjoyed responsibility, prestige, and authority. The power grabbers were other men. Political candidates are equally reluctant. They sell themselves as public servants, only in it to fix the economy or improve education. Have you ever heard a candidate admit he wants power? Obviously, the word “servant” is doublespeak: does anyone believe that it’s only for our sake that they join the mudslinging of modern democracy? Do the candidates themselves believe this? What an unusual sacrifice that would be. It’s refreshing to work with chimpanzees: they are the honest politicians we all long for. When political philosopher Thomas Hobbes postulated an insuppressible power drive, he was right on target for both humans and apes. Observing how blatantly chimpanzees jockey for position, one will look in vain for ulterior motives and expedient promises. I was not prepared for this when, as a young student, I began to follow the dramas among the Arnhem chimpanzees from an observation window overlooking their island. In those days, students were supposed to be antiestablishment, and my shoulder-long hair proved it. We considered power evil and ambition ridiculous. Yet my observations of the apes forced me to open my mind to seeing power relations not as something bad but as something ingrained. Perhaps inequality was not to be dismissed as simply the product of capitalism. It seemed to go deeper than that. Nowadays, this may seem banal, but in the 1970s human behavior was seen as totally flexible: not natural but cultural. If we really wanted to, people believed, we could rid ourselves of archaic tendencies like sexual jealousy, gender roles, material ownership, and, yes, the desire to dominate. Unaware of this revolutionary call, my chimpanzees demonstrated the same archaic tendencies, but without a trace of cognitive dissonance. They were jealous, sexist, and possessive, plain and simple. I didn’t know then that I’d be working with them for the rest of my life or that I would never again have the luxury of sitting on a wooden stool and watching them for thousands of hours. It was the most revelatory time of my life. I became so engrossed that I began trying to imagine what made my apes decide on this or that action. I started dreaming of them at night and, most significant, I started seeing the people around me in a different light.

But my sleep was ragged that night, she wrote. But she didn’t know anything about ragged sleep when she wrote that. She knew the word ragged and she knew it was an adjective that could describe many things, including sleep, but she knew nothing about ragged sleep. Nowadays she is shocked by the fraudulence of words. Every word claims an authority and every word craves to be believed, and we read others’ words and we find something to relate to, solace in a shared experience. Yet there doesn’t have to be any experience behind a word. A word can be a shadow not cast by any object.

Anyone who is awake nowadays knows that Republicans and Democrats seem to disagree on most issues — and neither side seems able to be persuaded by the other. Why? After analyzing the data from 44 years of studies and more than 22,000 people in the United States and Europe, John Jost and his associates86 have concluded that these disagreements are not simply philosophic disputes about how, say, to end poverty or fix schools; they reflect different ways of thinking, different levels of tolerance for uncertainty, and core personality traits, which is why conservatives and liberals are usually not persuaded by the same kinds of arguments. As a result of such evidence, some evolutionary psychologists maintain that ideological belief systems may have evolved in human societies to be organized along a left–right dimension, consisting of two core sets of attitudes: (1) whether a person advocates social change or supports the system as it is, and (2) whether a person thinks inequality is a result of human policies and can be overcome or is inevitable and should be accepted as part of the natural order.87 Evolutionary psychologists point out that both sets of attitudes would have had adaptive benefits over the millennia: Conservatism would have promoted stability, tradition, order, and the benefits of hierarchy, whereas liberalism would have promoted rebelliousness, change, flexibility, and the benefits of equality.88 Conservatives prefer the familiar; liberals prefer the unusual. Every society, to survive, would have done best with both kinds of citizens, but you can see why liberals and conservatives argue so emotionally over issues such as income inequality and gay marriage. They are not only arguing about the specific issue, but also about underlying assumptions and values that emerge from their personality traits. It is important to stress that these are general tendencies. Most people enjoy stability and change in their lives, perhaps in different proportion at different ages; many people will change their minds in response to new situations and experiences, as was the case in the acceptance of gay marriage; and until relatively recently in American society, the majority of members of both political parties were willing to compromise and seek common ground in passing legislation. Still, such differences in basic orientation help explain the frustrating fact that liberals and conservatives so rarely succeed in hearing one another, let alone in changing one another’s minds.

They used my name and permit to grow the weed and earn money to repay their debts and compensate their investors. To keep my girlfriend. To take her. I am uncertain if any of them have ever spent a minute in jail for any of these activities. Adam proudly showcases his new motorcycles on Instagram, posing on a hill above Barcelona. He also displays his brand new electric camper van, which they use to travel and transport drugs across Europe and Iberia, as well as his gigantic marijuana cultivation located in Portugal. People like Ruan and Martina admire his public images. I came across a picture of Ruan and Martina together in Berlin, where their mother Fernanda visited them. Martina became member of the Evil Eye Cult, and the custom made mafia group in Spain, which used her as a pawn in their porn and drug-related activities. She now operates as their representative in Berlin. Martina and I have lost the ability to genuinely smile. Her social media posts only show disinterest or a malicious demeanor. ‘A boot stomping on a human face.’ In a picture with her brother and mother, she puts on a forced fake “good vibe” and “happy” smile, revealing her flawless teeth and the subtle lines of aging. With each passing day, she bears a greater resemblance to her rich and so happy mother, the bad person. As far as I know, none of these individuals have faced consequences for their actions, such as having their teeth broken. As I had. Innocently. Taking care of business and their lives. With love. I find this to be incredibly unjust. In the 21st century. In Europe. On planet Earth. By non-EU criminals. “Matando – ganando” – “killing and gaining” like there were no Laws at all. Nowadays, you can observe Sabrina flaunting her fake lips and altered face, just like Martina her enhanced breasts. Guess who was paying for it? It seems that both girls now sustain themselves through their bodies and drug involvement, to this day, influencing criminals to gain friends in harming Tomas and having a lavish lifestyle filled with fun and mischief. Making a living. Enjoying Spain. Enjoying Life. My money. My tears. This is the situation as it stands. I was wondering what Salvador Dali was trying to tell me. I stood in front of the Lincoln portrait for a long time, but I couldn't grasp the point or the moral behind it. I can listen to Abraham Lincoln and ‘trust people. To see. If I can trust them.’ But he ultimately suffered a tragic fate, with his life being taken. (Got his head popped.) I believe there may have also been a female or two involved in that situation, too, possibly leading to his guards being let down. While he was watching: Acting performances, he was facing a: Stage. Theater. It is disheartening, considering he was a good person. Like Jesus, John Lennon and so on. Shows a pattern Machiavelli was talking about. Some individuals are too bright for those in darkness; they feel compelled to suppress those brighter minds simply because they think and act differently. Popping their heads. Reptilian lower brain-based culture, the concept of the Evil Eye, Homo erectus. He couldn't even stand up properly when I was shouting at him, urging him to stand up from the stairs. ‘Homo seditus reptilis.’ But what else was there in the Lincoln image that I didn't see? What was Dali trying to convey or express or tell me? Besides the fact that the woman is in his mind, on his mind, in the image, exactly, his head got popped open. Perhaps because he was focusing on a woman, trusting her for a split second, or turning his head away for a moment.

Blood is no longer ticker than water Nowadays strangers even help people more than relatives Relatives only accept you when you are successful

Nowadays it often takes two parents working full-time to secure the same standard of living one wage earner could provide thirty or forty years ago. Deepening social stresses and the growing sense of economic insecurity even in the midst of relative wealth have all combined to create a milieu in which calm, connected parenting is increasingly difficult. Precisely when parents and other adults need to form stronger attachment bonds with their children than ever before, they have less time and energy to do so. Robert Bly notes that “in 1935 the average working man had forty hours a week free, including Saturday. By 1990, it was down to seventeen hours. The twenty-three lost hours of free time a week since 1935 are the very hours in which the father could be a nurturing father, and find some center in himself, and the very hours in which the mother could feel she actually has a husband.” These patterns characterize not only the early years of parenting but entire childhoods. Although many fathers today are more conscientious in taking a share of parenting responsibility, the stresses of modern life and the chronic lack of time subvert their best intentions. It is for economic reasons that parenting does not get the respect it should. That we live where we do rather than where our natural supporting cast is — friends, the extended family, our communities of origin — has come about for economic reasons, often beyond the control of individual parents, as, for example, when whole industries are shut down or relocated. It is for economic reasons that we build schools too large for connection to happen and that we have classes too large for children to receive individual attention.

Poetry Reading To be a boxer, or not to be there at all. O Muse, where are our teeming crowds? Twelve people in the room, eight seats to spare— it’s time to start this cultural affair. Half came inside because it started raining, the rest are relatives. O Muse. The women here would love to rant and rave, but that’s for boxing. Here they must behave. Dante’s Inferno is ringside nowadays. Likewise his Paradise. O Muse. Oh, not to be a boxer but a poet, one sentenced to hard shelleying for life, for lack of muscles forced to show the world the sonnet that may make the high-school reading lists with luck. O Muse, O bobtailed angel, Pegasus. In the first row, a sweet old man’s soft snore: he dreams his wife’s alive again. What’s more, she’s making him that tart she used to bake. Aflame, but carefully—don’t burn his cake!— we start to read. O Muse.

Even among philosophers, we may say, broadly, that only those universals which are named by adjectives or substantives have been much or often recognized, while those named by verbs and prepositions have been usually overlooked. This omission has had a very great effect upon philosophy; it is hardly too much to say that most metaphysics, since Spinoza, has been largely determined by it. The way this has occurred is, in outline, as follows: Speaking generally, adjectives and common nouns express qualities or properties of single things, whereas prepositions and verbs tend to express relations between two or more things. Thus the neglect of prepositions and verbs led to the belief that every proposition can be regarded as attributing a property to a single thing, rather than as expressing a relation between two or more things. Hence it was supposed that, ultimately, there can be no such entities as relations between things. Hence either there can be only one thing in the universe, or, if there are many things, they cannot possibly interact in any way, since any interaction would be a relation, and relations are impossible. The first of these views, advocated by Spinoza and held in our own day by Bradley and many other philosophers, is called monism; the second, advocated by Leibniz but not very common nowadays, is called monadism, because each of the isolated things is called a monad. Both these opposing philosophies, interesting as they are, result, in my opinion, from an undue attention to one sort of universals, namely the sort represented by adjectives and substantives rather than by verbs and prepositions.

The mind's well-being was the well that was poisoned. One doesn't own a little anti-Semitism as if it were a puppy that isn't big enough yet to poop a lot. One yap from the pooch is already too much. Nor is saying "it was only social" a successful excuse. Only social, indeed ... only a mild case. The mild climate renders shirt-sleeves acceptable, loosens ties and collars, allows extremes to seem means, makes nakedness normal, facilitates the growth of weeds. Since the true causes of anti-Semitism do not lie with the Jews themselves (for if they did, anti-Semitism might bear some semblance of reason), they must lie elsewhere--so, if not in the hated, then in the hater, in another mode of misery. Rationalist philosophers, from the beginning, regarded ignorance and error as the central sources of evil, and the conditions of contemporary life have certainly given their view considerable support. We are as responsible for our beliefs as for our behavior. Indeed, they are usually linked. Our brains respond, as well as our bodies do, to exercise and good diet. One can think of hundreds of beliefs--religious, political, social--which must be as bad for the head as fat is for the heart, and whose loss would lighten and enliven the spirit; but inherently silly ones, like transubstantiation, nowadays keep their consequences in control and relatively close to home. However, anti-Semitism does not; it is an unmitigated moral catastrophe. One can easily imagine how it might contaminate other areas of one's mental system. But is it the sickness or a symptom of a different disease? Humphrey Carpenter's level headed tone does not countenance Pound's corruption. It simply places the problem before us, permitting out anger and our pity. -- From "Ezra Pound

This issue of Stvar we dedicate to the anniversaries. Each effort that commences from historical years and epochal dates, however, is not only supposed to cope with the legacy and lessons of evoked events and figures, but also to question a certain (dominant) relation to the past and history. In other words, the task is not a commemorative one, that is, a fetishist relation to the epoch of decisive dates and big events, but rather the radical grasping of the materiality of history following its work where social contradictions require that fight for emancipation and progress is to be taken up. What is at stake here is not an academic requiem or a leftist memorial service to the era of revolutions and great revolutionaries; it is all about casting our gaze toward the past in order to better examine those moments where the past opens itself toward the future. The relation toward past, therefore, should contain perspectives of different future. Amputation of the future is nowadays one of the features of many current academic, scientific and ideological discourses. Once this perspective of different future has been eliminated, the resignification of Marx, Luxemburg, Kollontai, Lenin and others becomes possible, because their doctrines and results have been quite depoliticized. On the contrary, it is the memory that calls for struggle that is the main cognitive attitude toward the events remembered in the collected texts in this issue. Not nostalgic or collectionist remembrance but critical memory filled with hope. The main question, thus, is that of radical social transformations, i.e. theory and practice of revolution. In this sense, Marx, Kollontai, Lenin and other Bolsheviks, and Gramsci as well, constitute the coordinates in which every theoretical practice that wants to offer resistance to capitalist expansion and its ideological forms is moving. The year 1867, when the first Volume of Marx’s Capital is brought out in Hamburg, then October 1917 in Russia, when all power went to the hands of Soviets, and 1937, when Gramsci dies after 11 years of fascist prison: these are three events that we are rethinking, highlighting and interpreting so that perspective of the change of the current social relations can be further developed and carried on. Publishing of the book after which nothing was the same anymore, a revolutionary uprising and conquest of the power, and then a death in jail are the coordinates of historical outcomes as well: these events can be seen as symptomatic dialectical-historical sequence. Firstly, in Capital Marx laid down foundations for the critique of political economy, indispensable frame for every understanding of production and social relations in capitalism, and then in 1917, in the greatest attempt of the organization of working masses, Bolsheviks undermined seriously the system of capitalist production and created the first worker’s state of that kind; and at the end, Gramsci’s death in 1937 somehow symbolizes a tragical outcome and defeat of all aspirations toward revolutionizing of social relations in the Western Europe. Instead of that, Europe got fascism and the years of destruction and sufferings. Although the 1937 is the symbolic year of defeat, it is also a testimony of hope and survival of a living idea that inspires thinkers and revolutionaries since Marx. Gramsci also handed down the huge material of his prison notebooks, as one of the most original attempts to critically elaborate Marx’s and Lenin’s doctrine in new conditions. Isn’t this task the same today?

One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it. Let’s take another familiar example from our own time. Over the last few decades, we have invented countless time-saving devices that are supposed to make life more relaxed –washing machines, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, telephones, mobile phones, computers, email. Previously it took a lot of work to write a letter, address and stamp an envelope, and take it to the mailbox. It took days or weeks, maybe even months, to get a reply. Nowadays I can dash off an email, send it halfway around the globe, and (if my addressee is online) receive a reply a minute later. I’ve saved all that trouble and time, but do I live a more relaxed life? Sadly not. Back in the snail-mail era, people usually only wrote letters when they had something important to relate. Rather than writing the first thing that came into their heads, they considered carefully what they wanted to say and how to phrase it. They expected to receive a similarly considered answer. Most people wrote and received no more than a handful of letters a month and seldom felt compelled to reply immediately. Today I receive dozens of emails each day, all from people who expect a prompt reply. We thought we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of life to ten times its former speed and made our days more anxious and agitated.

Hypocrisy, Milton wrote, is “the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone.” To ensure that “neither Man nor Angel can discern” the evil is, nonetheless, a demanding vocation. Pascal had discussed it a few years earlier while recording “how the casuists reconcile the contrarieties between their opinions and the decisions of the popes, the councils, and the Scripture.” “One of the methods in which we reconcile these contradictions,” his casuist interlocutor explains, “is by the interpretation of some phrase.” Thus, if the Gospel says, “Give alms of your superfluity,” and the task is “to discharge the wealthiest from the obligation of alms-giving,” “the matter is easily put to rights by giving such an interpretation to the word superfluity that it will seldom or never happen that any one is troubled with such an article.” Learned scholars demonstrate that “what men of the world lay up to improve their circumstances, or those of their relatives, cannot be termed superfluity; and accordingly, such a thing as superfluity is seldom to be found among men of the world, not even excepting kings”—nowadays, we call it tax reform. We may, then, adhere faithfully to the preachings of the Gospel that “the rich are bound to give alms of their superfluity,… [though] it will seldom or never happen to be obligatory in practice.” “There you see the utility of interpretations,” he concludes.

The advantage of a modern global man is that, unlike his predecessors, he can extend his mind towards the external environment, make a relatively close and stable interaction between his mind and artificial intelligence, such as computers, smartphones, social networks, online information resources, etc. Naturally, the human brain cannot store such a massive information as it can when it is connected to artificial intelligence. Making this intelligence a constitutive part of our mind, nowadays we can extend the power of our mind to a considerable extent. For that reason, in modern conditions your mind power also depends on how successfully you can make the artificial intelligence to which you are involved an integral part of your own mind.

We can also increase the perceived long term value by the way we describe our emails. Nowadays many businesses mention a newsletter on their website, but the phrase ‘newsletter’ doesn’t have any implied value in it. In fact the word ‘news’ is probably something you don’t want to hear from a potential supplier. Who cares whether Mary in accounts has had a birthday? What you would like to get is useful, valuable information. So instead of calling it an email newsletter, I call mine ‘client winning tips via email’. Or you could call it a ‘divorce survival bulletin’. Or ‘the cash flow accelerator emails’ or ‘tax cutting tips’. Each of these names implies some kind of value or outcome your potential subscribers will get from your emails. To come up with a good name, go back to your customer insight map for your ideal clients and look at the big problems, challenges, goals and aspirations your clients have. If you can name your emails to relate to those big goals and problems then they’re likely to see they’ll get value by subscribing to them.

APRIL 30 NOWADAYS THE WORLD is becoming increasingly materialistic, and mankind is reaching towards the very zenith of external progress, driven by an insatiable desire for power and vast possessions. Yet by this vain striving for perfection in a world where everything is relative, they wander ever further away from inward peace and happiness of the mind. This we can all bear witness to, living as we do plagued by unremitting anxiety in this dreadful epoch of mammoth weapons. It becomes more and more imperative that the life of the spirit be avowed as the only firm basis upon which to establish happiness and peace.

To my friend, the anthropologist, it was a sacrifice, but to me it was the burial of a very important child. The totonalcayos are also called cuecueyos in Náhuatl. A cuey is something curved in the shape of a half-moon which goes in and out. To put a cuey in the seven totonalcayos is a very advanced technique of taking out the soul, a technique which nowadays even the most advanced spiritual practitioners don’t know. The shedding of the skin represents the removal of the old energy. It is the symbol of the second Tezcatlipoca, the red one, Xipe Totec. It was clear to me that the cuecueyos had been inserted after this boy had died, and that he had been flayed to make his energy change so that he wouldn’t come back ever again. It’s a matter of common sense: if you sacrifice someone you don’t worry about his chakras, or his skin, and you don’t bother putting him in the foetal position, which is related to the way consciousness comes in and out of the body. So this proved something else that the guardians of the oral tradition had stated: that there had never been any human sacrifices in the Aztec Empire. When I realized this, I understood the extent to which the Aztec people been slandered. It was lack of understanding and a series of lies that had led to the slaughter in which 90 per cent of the native population of Mexico had perished. I was seeing this injustice now with my own eyes, and my heart sank in sadness for the ancient people of Mexico. Their throne had a cross on top of it; their dead were thought to have been sacrificed. I didn’t want to see anything else, not even the sun temple — I just wanted to get out of there.