Sunday Sermon

For the present I should like merely to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who

Étienne de La Boétie

Étienne de La Boétie

has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situation!

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6×9

For some reason this is not getting a lot of attention over here at the US. I can’t imagine why.

Chelsea Manning is apparently in the hospital following a suicide attempt. Solitary confinement is used as a torture technique in US prisons, and can be applied for the most trifling of reasons (“did you look at me?”  “hey, look at me when I’m talking to you!”) or supposed gang membership. In some cases, like Manning, or Jose Padilla, it’s applied out of sheer nastiness.

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Sunday Sermon

Epicurus (341–270 BC) wrote:

Some men want fame and status, thinking that they would thus make themselves secure against other men. If the life of such men really were secure, they have attained a natural good; if, however, it is insecure, they have not attained the end which by nature’s own prompting they originally sought.

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The Dining Philosophers, rebooted

Epicurus muttered, “None of this affects me at all,” excused himself, and slipped out the back door practically unnoticed. That left the table unbalanced. On one side were the ancient worlders: Plato and Aristotle, heads together in deep discussion, and Socrates, who appeared to be gently questioning Miletus while Sextus Empiricus studiously withheld judgement on the proceedings.

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