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Archive for the ‘Philosophy and culture’ Category

The prettiness and uselessness of insights

Posted in How to live, Philosophy and culture, Transformation and inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 10 July, 2010 | 5 Comments »

For the last few months I’ve been struggling with an issue, and one of the things that distresses me most, apart from the struggle itself, is that it’s the same old issue I’ve had for decades. I know this issue. I know every stone on the path to where it lives, all the byways and [...]

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Integrity vs Special Pleading (Part II)

Posted in How to live, Philosophy and culture, Transformation and inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , on 3 July, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Quick recap.  In the paper I discussed the other day, integrity is defined as: honouring one’s word, or, more precisely, one’s word, period. There are three other aspects of integrity I want to discuss today.  They are three beauties: one’s word includes one’s word to one’s self how to maintain integrity while acting illegally how [...]

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Integrity vs Special Pleading

Posted in How to live, Philosophy and culture, Transformation and inspiration, tagged , , , , , on 1 July, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Look at the following list.  How many of these things do you do? make promises and commitments you do not keep show up late and/or not prepared for meetings, or don’t show up at all surreptitiously read documents, answer emails, work on other matters while in meetings fail to return telephone calls when promised lie [...]

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Dubya’s Yap Yap

Posted in Philosophy and culture, tagged , , , , on 1 July, 2010 | 2 Comments »

News to gladden the heart of every Australian: John Howard, former Prime Minister, has missed out on becoming president of the International Cricket Council.  Just cacked myself reading the comments on the news item in The Age, including this priceless googly from one Bob Lansdowne: Best news I’ve heard since Dubya’s Yap Yap got bumrushed [...]

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The shock of the feminine pronoun

Posted in Philosophy and culture, Status of women, Transformation and inspiration, Women who've carried the day, tagged , , , , , on 26 June, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Every time a radio or TV announcer talks about the new Prime Minister they use the pronoun “she”, and I get a little shock.  Can it be? “Prime Minister” and “she” in the same statement?  Always the most powerful and telling unit of speech, the pronoun’s in neon at the moment. When I think of [...]

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First female Prime Minister in land feminism forgot

Posted in Philosophy and culture, Status of women, Transformation and inspiration, Women who've carried the day, tagged , , , , , on 24 June, 2010 | 2 Comments »

A few minutes ago, Australia got its first female Prime Minister.  Never did I think I’d live to see this day in the land that feminism forget, the land where women earn 83% of what men earn … Overnight, a surprise challenge was brought on to oust Kevin Rudd, the man elected by Australian voters [...]

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Real conversation #4

Posted in Philosophy and culture, Real conversation, Transformation and inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 15 June, 2010 | 2 Comments »

A little while ago in response to a previous post on real conversation, Dafna asked whether real conversation could occur on a blog.  I answered “no” because it requires one person being with another.  Now I tossed this off pretty cavalierly, and since then I’ve been thinking about what I meant by this “being with” [...]

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John Monash: bridge builder, humble genius

Posted in Melbourne cool, Philosophy and culture, tagged , , , , , , , , on 28 May, 2010 | 2 Comments »

The masthead shows Morell Bridge in Melbourne.  I cross the bridge several times a week, and each time I get a thrill at its prettiness and elegance and the fact it was built by the man dubbed “the best general on the western front”:  John Monash. The bridge was built in 1899, and apart from [...]

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Incendiary blogging

Posted in Great blogs, On writing, Philosophy and culture, tagged , , on 23 May, 2010 | 15 Comments »

Blogging, I’ve decided, can be a humbling and baffling experience.  The things I most love sink without trace, while the merely ornamental go on and on.  Yes, probably the former are my darlings and are thus in need of a good crucifixion.  But it’s the latter that really kill me. So Chris Clarke, writing recently [...]

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A feeling for question

Posted in How to live, Philosophy and culture, Transformation and inspiration, tagged , , , , , on 7 May, 2010 | 12 Comments »

As books are to literature so questions are to philosophy.  They’re the stock in trade of each.  Seems obvious now, though it took me a while to get it when I first started studying philosophy.  I couldn’t work out what I was actually dealing with.  It wasn’t until I took a clue from one of [...]

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