One may argue that the Orient and the Occident neither are nor can become the things they represent, since language is always prone to being representative. This exercise regarding paintings under the light of language and representation may alert the need to change our constructed way of understanding the Occident and the Orient.
Category Archives: The Sophist
Idle and Vain: The Inverse Relationship Between Intellectual Pursuits and Morality
As we study in university, passing daily through an academic institution (toward our next station in life), Rousseau suspects we are only contributing to the deterioration of societal morals. “Morals” for Rousseau translates the French word mœurs, which is used in the general sense encompassing social manners, norms, and custom. From a thinker of the Enlightenment period, Rousseau’s stance inspires a double take.
Sisyphus, Sartre, and Searching for Meaning during COVID
One freak occurrence across the globe froze our lives in place. A microscopic fleck of protein prevented us all from seeing our families and friends, from attending parties and movies, from even showing our faces in public. How can we continue to live, knowing that existence itself is so fragile, so chaotic, so absurd?
What’s at Stake: This Life by Martin Hägglund
In Hägglund’s reluctance to articulate institutional forms of democratic socialism or a clear path to get there, he actually presents an elusive utopia that we just have to believe in.
Plato’s Nightmare in Maduro’s Venezuela
The specter of an ancient threat to liberty, prosperity, and basic human dignity haunts the Caribbean world today.
Through High Street Gate
An open society invites different people to be part of the discourse. An open society welcomes dissent.
Justifying Nonviolence: A Comparison of King’s Moral and Practical Critiques of Violence
King’s practical arguments against violence are more compelling than his moral arguments because they more effectively demonstrate the weaknesses of violence in the context of the civil rights movement.
E-legal: Law in the Age of Automation
Imagine an omnipotent system that could detect whenever a law was broken, whether on the internet or in real life.