“Genealogy of Fanaticism” by Emil Cioran, 1949
“Look around you: everywhere, specters preaching: each institution translates a mission; city halls have their absolute, even as the temples ―officialdom, with its rules― a metaphysics designed for monkeys… Everyone trying to remedy everyone’s life: even beggars, even the incurable aspire to it: the sidewalks and hospitals of the world overflow with reformers.”
The ideal of community: belief without proof (Arendt, 1929)
Though this equality is only implicit in the earthly city it permits us to understand interdependence, which essentially defines social life in the worldly community. This interdependence shows in the mutual give and take in which people live together.12 The attitude of individuals toward each other is characterized here by belief (crederer), as distinguished from […]
Kafka’s Aphorisms: Believing in progress
Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made. That is not the sort of belief that indicates real faith. ☛ The Zürau Aphorisms of Franz Kafka by Franz Kafka, translated by Geoffrey Brocks and Michael Hofmann, New York: Schocken Books, §48 (Random House, Google books, Amazon). This aphorism was […]
To believe (The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
☛ The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman, 1957, at around 00:55:00 [UPDATE – July 15, 2011] I corrected the release date. The film was first released in Sweden in 1957 and in the United-States in 1958. See “Film Facts” for The Seventh Seal at The Ingmar Bergman Foundation. I know of at least three different […]
