Last night while reading Orthodoxy in Massachusettsand listening to a radio talk show aboutthe sources of “creativity” and the ubiquityof genius in America, home of the fortunate deluded,I fell into a swoon, a trancein which I saw the sad face of my father.Transported deep within myself I dreamedalthough awake and conscious of the images I … More For My Father
After bone-wrenching battle of vanquished dreams in which my body’s bag was born, torn and tamed by drenching rains as lightning nightmare made my hair curl, there came a cool and conscious light of dawn. Rising—more colliding—I collapsed and gasped my way, I took the soaked imaginings of my hide to the far end of … More THE GARDEN SPIDER
Anthropologist Angeles Arrien gave this amazing talk at TEDXFidiWomen
For the next few weeks, I will only be posting once a week on Wednesday. This is because I am busily creating and fine-tuning TLC, a new platform to familiarize and engage a wider audience with my original fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Is man bigger, greater, more important than nature, earth, the universe in which he finds himself? I don’t see how he can be, since nature evolved man. What reason do we have—can there possibly be—to think that nature evolved man so that he could replace nature, earth, the universe? This is exponential arrogance, the ultimate … More MAN’S HUBRIS LETS HIM THINK HE IS GOD
1. You are here only as citizens in your capacity as individual human persons; that plus the facts of your natality—that we are all born into this world—and your mortality—that we shall all die within a span of roughly 100 years—are the unique sources of our moral and political equality, on which the Constitutional notion … More Eight Proposed Rules for Sustaining Democratic Autonomy and Local Resilience in Public “Council System” Meetings:
1. A public space where citizens can engage in opinion sharing, opinion formation, to arrive at judgments for the purpose of concerted action. Because freedom is only possible among equals, so citizens must meet as equals to experience political freedom in the council system. 2. A language common to all citizens (American English). Without a … More Prerequisites for Maintaining Political Freedom in a Democratic Republic
He who would fix the pattern of decision by confining the American choice to one and only one mode of response—whether this be in politics, diplomacy, economics, literary form, or morality itself—such a one, in the light of our history, is the “truly Un-American.” —Perry Miller (1967) Only if citizens can recover their heritage of … More The Challenge: Implementing Arendt’s Solution
For all they achieved, the Founders and the U.S. Constitution failed to create a permanent space where citizens could participate in political freedom by expressing, discussing, and deciding issues relevant to their lives and communities. (In their defense, the eighteenth-century Founders could count on a vibrant local political life among citizens in local townships and … More How to Govern through the Local Council System
Hannah Arendt is perhaps most highly regarded for her insights into political authority and totalitarianism, her critiques of Western philosophy and modernity (especially her blistering criticism of the “social sciences”). Hannah Arendt’s defense of politics as uniquely humanizing and ennobling rests on her conviction that, for “the realm of human affairs,” opinion is more fundamental … More Introduction: Hannah Arendt and the Council System
