Tag: philosophy


  • Theme:

    dizzyness of freedom

    1–2 minutes

    The “dizziness of freedom” produces anxiety, according to Kirkegaard.

    When you can do anything, you open access to a surplus of choices, “the possibility of possibility,” from which uncertainty blossoms: which decision will lead to happiness?

    Kierkegaard says empowerment comes from ownership (taking responsibility) and making a choice: to restrict your “freedom” by choosing frees you from anxiety. This can be called a “leap of faith,” when you realize that more pondering of the problem is a problem to decide and act creates relief.


  • Theme:

    Concrete confusion: trans movement

    1–2 minutes

    One complaint of the non-binary and transsexual movement is its unwillingness to define itself or its parameters. Tactically this is smart; strategically, it creates havoc.

    In the “concrete universal,” a very particular example becomes the definition for the broader category, which means it serves as a particular instance for an abstract idea.

    In not defining a “specific point,” confusion is the point. (Without concrete, we are only left with shifting abstractions, easily manipulated and unanticipated.)

    Strategically, vagueness can evade attacks, slipping around limiting parameters as a type of guerilla warfare without standardization. Yet, normative social relations predicated upon the utility and identity of defined (concrete) characteristics are thrown into chaos, and the more literal-minded become anxious, leading them to antagonism to recapture stability.

    Without specificity, how to define or defend an idea also seems unknowable. Unfortunately, we are witnessing any non-majority behavior become equivalent by affiliation with the most extreme aspects; that is, people have begun defining the entire LGBTQIA spectrum by its most confusing aspects and reacting against the whole.


  • Theme:

    naivety as virtue

    1–2 minutes

    Our naivety can be a virtue.

    When wisdom accepts brutality and evil out of an overly weary and worldly common sense, aspirational hope is patronized.

    This brand of wisdom accepts the unacceptable, promoting a moral deficiency of stagnation.


  • Theme:

    The apocalypse is revelation

    1–2 minutes

    Apocalypse is, from the Greek, an uncovering or revelation. We use the word today to mean a world-ending catastrophe.

    The hidden meaning is when reality is disclosed to us (revealed), it destroys our assumptions: the truth was always there, but upon being forced to witness it, it shatters us.

    (via Zizek)


  • Theme:

    Time to truth

    1–2 minutes

    Trust is in short supply. People claim to be transparent, but most CEOs rate their confidence at reading the company at 75%, while employees rated at 20%.

    Transparency is oddly murky.

    The layers of bureaucracy and hierarchy establish a system, where there is a “speed of truth,” moving through the company. If you could calculate the time until the truth can penetrate to a CEO, perhaps a blunt and honest comment made by an underling where it heard and accepted, you would find that most companies have a terrible problem with transparency and truth.

    This is further confounded by everyone, claiming to be transparent, which they must to maintain their job.


  • Theme:

    Truth is at hand

    1–2 minutes

    Camus says churches, political or religious, care not for the truth. They establish doctrines, which declare eternal aims, which never last.

    The truth is at hand: touchable.

    Even if you claim it does not last, at least it makes no false declarations of eternity.


  • Theme:

    Truth as creation rather than discovery

    1–2 minutes

    Is "truth" merely the repetition of acts you create for yourself?
    Suppose there is no universal truth but merely the monotonous repetition that sharpens intuition into hard law, a vital principle. In that case, it may feel like discovery or exposure of truth, while it is instead a personal creation.


  • Theme:

    Entelechey: realization of potential

    1–2 minutes

    Aristotle says there is a core principle within that shapes outcomes into reality.

    The “entelechey” is a motivating force that organizes potential into actuality; that is, it directs potential into the real instead of mere theory or form.

    A fundamental seed, like a crystalline DNA, expresses its shape (ideas and form) and its will to expand into an organized realization (matter).


  • Theme:

    Your self is time

    1–2 minutes

    When we are is who we are, according to Heidegger.

    Our temporality is inseparable from us, so we should consider more importantly our historically positioned current moment: what we do is more precisely when we are.

    In this context, if who we are is what we do, action is time and we are a moment.


  • Theme:

    Wrong in the name of right

    1–2 minutes

    Doing wrong in the name of right seems obviously wrong. Virtue can shift into justice, and shade into justification.

    But how do you know what is right?

    The right is known because it endures, while means/ends instrumentalization contradicts itself.