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Dietrich Bonhoffer
Educated, cultured, brothers became lawyers and engineers – perhaps as an act of rebellion studied theology! Thought about being a concert pianist but considered his fingers too fat. Saw a world “come of age”, like Nietzsche – no need for god anymore. And certainly not keen on religion as a crutch. Spent time in Harlem…
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Microaggression and victim culture
Honour cultures developed in pastoral societies, where your worldlygoods could simply be lifted one night and you would be left with nothing. Itwas important to show your readiness to defend and retaliate withforce. Scottish immigrants to America may have brought some of this withthem, particularly to the Southern States! But as civil society developed and…
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Culture of fear
Frank Furedi has written a couple of books about this (also about “paranoid parenting”). Historically, fear of God was seen as crucial for a moral life, so a positive thing. Fear then becomes understood as pathological eg social phobia. Unpleasant experiences in childhood become institutional problems to be fixed not life challenges to develop skills…
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Kant's categorical imperative
What Kant calls a moral law that is universal. It was his attempt to develop moral philosophy on the basis of pure reason. He had already written “A critique of pure reason” in which he recognized that the existence of god and individual freedom were not able to be inferred from logic (despite efforts by Descartes,…
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Mistaken Identity – Reith Lectures 2016 – Kwame Anthony Appiah
Genetically we seem predisposed to seek links with groups outside our immediate family, and seek differences that distinguish “us” and “them”. Important in the small groups that early man survived in. Colour – Western peoples assumed everyone came from Abraham, via Noah, and race/colour were considered mere geographical variations! Race ideas emerged at same time…
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I have nothing to hide
“Because a right is not particularly valuable to you at a particular time because you are not threatening, you assume it’s not valuable to anyone. But you have not idea how laws or social norms are likely to change in the future. You could find yourself in trouble regardless of whether you’d done anything “wrong”…
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Chivalry
Need to justify military power in context of Christianity! So Just War eg Pope Urban calling for crusade to recover Jerusalem. Expected to show same qualities of self discipline, sacrifice as other pious people, but other things crept in eg largesse, courtesy and eventually courtly love. Anglo-saxon warfare usually involved killing your enemies, in France…
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Disgust
Disgust starts early with bitter, sour tastes. Protects us against toxins – but emotional component. Bodily fluids, diseased appearance, unusual sexual practices are pretty universal. The fear of contamination is often part of disgust, and unpleasant textures/smells are often associated with minority social groups. Propensity to disgust associated with political conservatism, even when controlled for other…
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Hamlet and adolescent brooding
Hamlet is one of the few adolescents in Western art treated with sympathy by his creator. Shakespeare sees in Hamlet’s youth more than just immaturity and idiocy – he connects it with sincerity and philosophical depth. To joke about one’s absurd adolescence is at the same time to boast about one’s current maturity. To…
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Liberty
“In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill started by admitting that democratic nations did offer their citizens a high degree of freedom, in contrast to the situation in, for example, the Russian Empire. And yet, Mill insisted, what makes a person free is a complex thing, and if we’re really interested in promoting freedom we should…