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Authenticity in the Wreckage of Honor and Dignity
The isolated individual is entirely unsatisfactory. Precisely because of a person’s social character, stable identities can only emerge in relationships with stable social contexts. Therefore, there is deep uncertainty about contemporary identity; it’s an identity crisis if you will. Continue reading
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Educated Agency in the University: from Mastery to Authenticity
“…to be educated is not to be in control or to master chance, it is to become more authentically who you are.” Continue reading
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The Politics of Sexuality, Part 3: Homosexual Weddings, and Marriage
A marriage, on the other hand, is made by a daily effort to live out the vows until death. In the words of my father, the vows I make to my spouse are not so much like laws that I keep or break; they are commitments that keep or break me. The vows may be… Continue reading
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Mass Society and “Public” Sexuality, Part 2: Abortion
One may suggest that life either begins at birth or at conception, but neither option treats life very seriously. A more accurate yet more mysterious option might be “life continues through conception”. Continue reading
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Mass Society and “Public” Sexuality Part 1: Contested Moral Terrain
In our investment in Mass Society, liberal-democratic societies have skilled us at politicizing the nonpolitical. Continue reading
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Dad, but not yet Father
The father we can believe in is one who stretches his arms out in waiting, but not in force. The father never lets his arms drop down in despair, but awaits his children’s return so that he can speak words of love to them. His desire is only to bless. Continue reading
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From Humility to Meekness: From Submission to Agency
A humble individual may be wrong but he must also feel bad about it. Even if one doesn’t feel bad about being wrong there is often real or imagined pressure to virtue signal; I may not feel bad that I was wrong, but I have to apologize as if I did. Continue reading
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Beyond Humility: Intellectual Meekness is a Way of Being
An individual with IM occupies a reality in which one is comfortable with having more questions than answers – celebrates duly the answers she comes up with – but lives with a kind of confidence and faith that having questions is one essential part of being authentically human. Continue reading
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A Private Life and Her Three Communities
Without that inner circle of significant others, we’re left with shallowness and a void: we’re “known of,” but never truly known, even to ourselves. Continue reading
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Fulfilled Needs and Desires: by Gift or by Effort?
A person who thinks of herself secretly as a completely autonomous self, with unlimited possibilities (for this concept is what society teaches), finds herself in an impossible situation. Continue reading
About me: I am a career educator and traveler at heart. My written work includes academic writing in philosophy and linguistics, English acquisition, and most intently in the areas of spiritual engagement with reality and what that means for our public lives.
My education is a mixture of formal study in philosophy, political theory, Biblical studies, and history, along with professional teaching certification in TESOL and in cognitive testing, and international teaching.
My travel experiences include a range of countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. I have lived in Canada, the United States, Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Thailand. From those places I have traveled to many others besides.
I am a child of the 70’s and a “family man.” That means I have two wonderful kids who have been round the world with me.
Lastly, I am married to a wonderful woman since 2004. She is my partner, my friend, and my muse.
Thanks again for stopping by,
Raymond Klassen - Ideals and Identities 