– Morality is the explicator of human agency. In our daily lives we make multiple moral decisions, and these choices may be the only aspects of our circumstances to which we are justly accountable. We generally do not choose our genotype, phenotype, health, economic/social status, etc., but we are assumed to choose our morals and understand their consequences. It follows that moral discourse cannot be called “ideal” without dehumanizing daily ‘human’ activities.
– Individuality – our personal treasure – expresses itself in social contexts. Without society, a manifestation of individuality is virtually meaningless. Here lies the difference between ‘chaotic autonomy’ and ‘individual freedom’. A free individual recognizes that social good enhances the potential of his/her own individuality.
– My main problem with vulgarity is that it malnourishes the intellect. Language interprets the mind, and also nourishes it with new ideas and images. There are situations when the use of some vulgar words may be understandable. However, when it becomes a norm that a big variety of expressions are all substituted with a handful meaningless words, out of context, that does not only limit the communication of ideas and images, but also dims intellectual capacity overtime.
– I consider myself religious, and I don’t like the category ‘spiritual’.. In order to engage the surrounding environment, with its dual physical-and-metaphysical nature, we need to operate our minds.. Minds do not operate in vacuums; they demand cognitive tools that integrate the physical and metaphysical.. i.e., religions.. To say that I’m ‘spiritual but not religious’ is like saying that I have a bicycle but I don’t know how to ride bicycles.
– There is a difference, I believe, between being reactionary and being responsive. Being reactionary means that I’m an agent without agency; I don’t ‘act’, I only ‘react’, which means that my actions are determined for me by others who set the rules of the game and make the first moves. Being responsive, on the other hand, means that I’m self-determined in my choices of how and when to answer external challenges.
– When you don’t acknowledge the partial truth you see in your opponent’s perspective, you practically surrender that truth to his/her territory.. After that, no matter what, you cease to be fully truthful in the debate.
– Since the 1960s and up to this day, humanity has not moved forward except in modern technology. Any other field – economics, politics, philosophy, art, theology, morality, etc. – has not shown any genuine progress, if not regress. Aside from modern technology, any major idea circulating today is but a dull version of an authentic one that already existed at least 50 years ago. Yet, for some reason, we call this a ‘revolutionary age’.
– “conventional wisdom” is an oxymoron…
– “The most powerful man is the one who wants nothing.” (a quote from a dream)
– Conventional is neither neutral nor convenient…
– Culture is thicker than blood…