There came an awful day when I picked up the phone and knew at once, as one does with some old friends even before they speak, that it was Edward. He sounded as if he were calling from the bottom of a...
I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into wh...
We inherited these principles and these freedoms and we here highly resolve that we shall pass them on, as we will pass on an undivided Republic purged of racism and slavery, to our descendants. The p...
Well, I'm in my 60s now. I finally look it, I think. People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have...
Almost all religions from Buddhism to Islam feature either a humble prophet or a prince who comes to identify with the poor, but what is this if not populism? It is hardly a surprise if religions choo...
To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.
The god of Moses would brusquely call for other tribes, including his favorite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially fi...
Incidentally, I have also learned a bit about the importance of avoiding feminine embarrassment ('Daddy,' wrote Sophia when she enrolled at the New School where I teach, 'people will ask why is old Ch...
Actual class struggles apart, one of the aesthetic ways you could prove that there was a class system in America was by cogitating on the word, or acronym, 'WASP.' First minted by in his book , the t...
What do you most value in your friends?Their continued existence.
Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to b...
Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.
For all its outwardly easy Latin charm, Buenos Aires was making me feel sick and upset, so I did take that trip to the great plains where the epics had been written, and I did manage to eat a couple...
Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.
Thus in order to be a radical one must be open to the possibility that one's own core assumptions are misconceived.
It was at a conference in Cyprus in 1976, where the theme was the rights of small nations, that I first met Edward Said. It was impossible not to be captivated by him: of his many immediately seductiv...
I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator - that's beyond my conceit.
Ronald Reagan said that he sought a Star Wars defense only in order to share the technology with the tyrants of the U.S.S.R.
It is often said, inside the Church and out of it, that there is something grotesque about lectures on the sexual life when delivered by those who have shunned it. Given the way that the Church forbid...
In a Pyongyang restaurant, don't ever ask for a doggie bag.