Philosophy

These two images are 82 years apart. A German and a Soviet officer shaking hands at the end of the Invasion of Poland, October 1939. 2. Poles saying no to both German National Socialism and Russian Soviet Socialism in 2021. Historical memory is strong in Poland.

Individual and institutional versions of racism exist (though “structural” and “systematic” do not). An example of the institutional kind is Social Security, the forced retirement savings plan mandated by the US government: Suppose a black man and a white man start working at age 18, doing the same kind of work and earning the same

Russia as the surprise center of internationalism: 1922: Workers of the world, unite! Lenin channeling Karl Marx. 2022: Christians of the world, unite! Putin, channeled by these guys:

My three-lecture tour got me this photo op:

Americans and Canadians write it as they say it: “February 22, 2022” is written as 2/2/22. Others write it from smallest to largest unit of time: day/month/year, so 22/2/22. As for the numerology, various sources have it that 2 means balance, femininity, intuition, peace, union, new beginnings, and related stuff. In Pythagoras’s system, 2 is

The structure overlooking Lake Michigan is magnificent. Paired here with a painting from the museum’s collection—another love-of-light-and-space work.

Plato’s Idealism: “If we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself … no pure knowledge is possible in the company of the body … so long as we are alive, we shall continue closest to knowledge if

Excerpt from Charles Taylor on Sebastian Haffner’s memoir Defying Hitler, including his experience as a law student early in the National Socialist regime. If by now the incidents that follow are familiar—the intimidation, the erosion of press freedom, violence in the streets, people fleeing or attempting to flee—it’s their novelty to Haffner that carries the