Belluton (Somerset), England

Philosopher John Locke is considered the first of the British empiricists, but is equally important to social contract theory. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of epistemology and political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers, classical republicans, and contributors to liberal theory. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries.

Locke’s theory of mind is often cited as the origin for modern conceptions of identity and “the self,” figuring prominently in the later works of philosophers such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first philosopher to define the self through a continuity of “consciousness.” He also postulated that the mind was a “tabula rasa” (blank state), that is, people are born without innate ideas, and knowledge is determined only by experience derived by sense perception.

Some quotables by Locke:

+  +  +

What worries you, masters you.

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.

Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.

It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean.

There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.

Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.

Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.

Where there is no desire, there will be no industry.

It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.

That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.

Logic is the anatomy of thought.

I chanced across a beautiful body of pithy illustrative humour by Constantin Ciosu today… much more to see at irancartoon.com.

Winnipeg, Canada

I’m constantly amazed at how many people in this day and age seem to accept the status quo and appear content with whatever is apparent or convenient. It’s been my experience that an attitude of “Question Everything!” opens whole new avenues of exploration and discovery… often leading to totally unexpected and serendipitous opportunity. Einstein famously stated: “Around every corner lurk a plethora of possibilities…”* but to experience these, one must of course have the courage, and make the effort, to round those proverbial corners. There’s no doubt in my mind that our aspirations are our possibilities. Seek and ye shall find, indeed. So, question everything… and then keep questioning the answers!

*(my translation from the original German—I came across the quote on a visit to the Jewish Museum in Berlin some years ago)

Image: one of a series of lovely illustrations about ‘Questioning’ that my friend Ronald Kapaz of Oz Design in São Paulo sent me.

Hanover, Germany

Hannah Arendt was an influential German-Jewish political theorist. Often described as a philosopher (a label she refuted), Arendt’s work dealt with the nature of power and the subjects of politics, authority, and totalitarianism— with much of her work focusing on affirming a conception of freedom which is synonymous with collective political action among equals. She theorized that freedom was “public and associative.”

A selection of “quotables” by Arendt that I find interesting:

+   +   +

In order to go on living one must try to escape
the death involved in perfectionism.

Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.

Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can pick it up.

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative
the day after the revolution.

It is my contention that civil disobediences are nothing but the latest form of voluntary association, and that they are thus quite in tune with the oldest traditions of the country.

Nothing we use or hear or touch can be expressed
in words that equal what is given by the senses.

Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.

Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.

There are no dangerous thoughts;
thinking itself is dangerous.

What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations… is its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by one’s own efforts.

Poets are the only people to whom love is not only a crucial, but an indispensable experience, which entitles them to mistake it for a universal one.

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.

+   +   +

(It seems I’m into philosophers of late…)

Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

So… it’s after a relaxing Friday-night dinner, and a nice bottle of wine, and my Sweetie and I are discussing geo-politics and classical rhetoric (of course :-) and we start reminiscing, and I bring up influential voices from the past (the past we didn’t share)… and we start Googling and YouTubing and somehow we end up with social critic and songster extraordinaire Randy Newman.

Seems not very much has changed since the 1970s, eh?  Here’s a performance to an appreciative European audience a full 34 years later.

Kilchberg, Switzerland

Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.

His writing career began with a gig for the great satirical German weekly magazine Simplicissimus (just after it was launched in 1896). As I’m a fan of quotations, here are some I’ve gleaned from Mann… for the record:

+   +  +

War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.

Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject.

An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates.

Every reasonable human being should be a moderate Socialist.

Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?

I don’t think anyone is thinking long-term now.

If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere,
you even smell it.

Speech is civilization itself.

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.

What a wonderful phenomenon it is, carefully considered, when the human eye, that jewel of organic structures, concentrates its moist brilliance on another human creature!

Street art fun…

Winnipeg, Canada

Driving into the city this morning, I heard a great interview with prominent American social critic Chris Hedges on CBC’s The Current. Chris was expounding on ideas and observations expressed in his new book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, in which he argues that western society (led by the U.S.) is being eroded by a celebrity-obsessed culture that encourages a form of narcissism that clouds our sense of reality (reminded me of similar thoughts I expressed six years ago in a HOW Magazine editorial).

Chris is an American journalist and author, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans, has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, where he was a reporter for fifteen years (and was part of team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism). That same year, he received the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. Chirs has taught at Columbia University, New York University, and Princeton University, and is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City. Read more about Chris and his weekly contributions to truthdig (where he is also a columnist) here.

Today marks 64 years since the first deployment of a nuclear weapon (by the U.S.—the only nation to ever do so) on human targets in Hiroshima, Japan.

Technology may make us more powerful, but not wiser.