Posts

DEATH AS THE REASON FOR THE DEATH OF MEANING AND VALUE

I write this just weeks away from my 84th birthday. I don’t know that I’m more aware of my coming departure from this so-called life than I was when I was ten. I was surely aware of my ultimate fate before that. My grandmother had died when I was 8, and I have a vague recollection of learning that one of my schoolmates at about that time had been struck by lightning and killed. But I was ten when my mother found me curled up in a fetal position in the bed she shared with my father crying. She asked me what was wrong and I said “I don’t want to die.” My mother’s response was curious on reflection. She was essentiallly uneducated, an immigrant from southern Italy, and an untutored Roman Catholic who had populated our Brooklyn apartment with pictures and statues of saints and had hung crosses on the walls. Thinking back, I would have thought that she would have comforted me by pointing out that when I died I would go to heaven where I would live forever with all of my family and
Post a Comment
Read more

HUMAN TOUCH, HEALTH, AND VIOLENCE

I get my health care through the OneMed health care service. They send out occasional memos to members on health matters. Today they sent one out on: HUMAN TOUCH CAN IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH Marvin Gaye said it best, Sexual healing is something that's good for me. And he was right: Physical touch can make you happier, lower blood pressure, lessen anxiety, and even boost immunity. So whether you’re getting up close and personal with your summer crush or just hugging friends and family, remember that human interaction and touch are important — and good for your health. Following are excerpts from my The Treachery of Realities: Safeguarding Truth in the Age of Science Denial (Brill, 2025). If you are going to find meaning anywhere, it’s going to be in your community, in your networks. And it is going to involve sex or more generally sensual pleasures. We haven’t learned the first thing about sex. The first thing is that sex is everywhere all the time, like gravity (labelled “Sexi
Post a Comment
Read more

THE ALIENS AMONG US

Yes,there are aliens who walk among us. But you wont find them at Area 51, or in secret UFO files at the Pentagon. You can find them in the Lousiana governor's office, the office of the Dean of Social Science at Harvard, and in Washington, D.C. where they boldly walk the corridors of the Congress and the Supreme Court. Louisiana classrooms now required by law to display the Ten Commandments,Stephanie Gallman and Dianne Gallagher, CNN: Wed June 19, 2024 Louisiana public schools are now required to display the Ten Commandments in all classrooms, after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the requirement into law Wednesday. A Harvard Dean Causes Firestorm With Call To Limit Faculty Speech, Michael T. Nietzel, June 19, 2024 Lawrence D. Bobo, Dean of Social Science and the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard, wrote an op-ed in the June 15th Harvard Crimson, in which he asked: “Is it outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member
Post a Comment
Read more

ODE TO NOTHINGNESS

PART I Passed the final frontier, into the infinity of emptiness, nothing left behind, nor nothing before us. Just a far echo, with the cries of those who stay. A heavy layer of oblivion, covers remains of a futile existence. In the horizon, nothingness, looking back, nostalgia. A void of silence, an abyss of solitude, the deepest darkness, unending travel to nowhere. Only dust left behind, in the horizon, nothingness. Band Dantalion Album Return to Deep Lethargy (2012) Type Album (Studio full-length) Genres Atmospheric Black Metal Labels Unexploded Records
Post a Comment
Read more

FROM SEXITY TO THE EROIC FORCE

In an earlier post, I posited the idea that sex is everywhere. This is true phenomenologically. But the more primitive force underlying sex is the eroic force.  The eroic force, like gravity, is every.  Just as we are bathed in gravity from the moment of conception until we die, so we are bathed in the eroic force throughout our lifetime.   That is lesson number one.   Until we learn this lesson, we will continue to make life miserable for humanity.  Lesson number two is that sex, as a manifestation of the eroic force, comes in many forms, is multi-dimensional, and more complex than anyone has yet imagined.  Lesson number three is that sex exists for humans of all ages, keeping in mind that sex is a particularly focused form of sensuality.   One must be sensual first.   Lesson number four: touching is the alpha and omega of life.   In an important sense, nothing else matters without it.  Now what?                                                                       Are there sensua
Post a Comment
Read more

GENESIS: A NOVEL

I WILL BE PUBLISHING THIS WORK IN PROGRESS EMERGING OUT OF THE HOLOMOVEMENT OF MY CONSCIOUSNESS PARAGRAPH BY PARAGRAPH AS THE MOMENT STRIKES ME CHAPTER 1.  ALREADY, ALWAYS, EVERYWHERE, AND FOREVER There is no beginning and there is no end to the VOID.  It is already, always, everywhere, and forever infinite in all directions.  It is a plenum that seethes with potential in utter darkness. There is movement in stilllness, energy fluctuations that can without reason or cause in any sense humans can comprehend erupt creatively.  Invisible ripples can suddenly become focused, hot, and dense.  Ripples become fluctuations, fluctuations get stretched out, and now they begin to erupt in hot and cold spots.  And now we are the first moments – moments to small for humans to comprehend – leading up to The Creation.  This is the measureable in principle but invisible to humans zero-point  enfolded in the plenum for the elements of any and all Creations.  Only matter is enfolded in the plenum  It ca
Post a Comment
Read more

FLORIDA, SOCIOLOGY, AND EXISTENTIAL THREATS

  By now you have probably read about the decision in Florida to remove “Principles of Sociology” from the state’s general education core course options. We are grateful to our members in Florida and beyond who have been working hard to make the case for the value of sociology. ASA has also been working hard to advocate for our discipline in Florida and in other states facing the prospect of similar decisions. In advance of the final Florida decision, ASA submitted a public comment objecting to the proposal, joining in an effort undertaken by many local sociologists who shared deeply compelling arguments in writing and in person. Once the decision was made, ASA responded with comment to the media, leading to extensivE coverage in outlets including the New York Times , Washington Post , Huff Post , Guardian , Fox News , and Tampa Bay Times . We’ve reached out directly to relevant Florida staff and will continue lobbying members of the Board of Governors of the State
Post a Comment
Read more