Charles Taylor
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What A.I. Really Threatens: Yuval Harari and the Red Flag of Intimacy
It isn’t our sovereignty that AI threatens (since we never have been sovereign); it is our authenticity. Continue reading
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Covenant and the Freedom to Act – Public Talk with podcast links
The irony in my giving this talk in that place, under these circumstances… reaches my heart with a deep and absurd smile. I grieve it, yes. But God’s plans are always better than mine. Continue reading
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Changing Habits and Impacting Freedom
Imagine you are waiting at a train station. You are waiting to try to get on the train of thought that leads to the destination of effective freedom and the path of virtuous moral development. Continue reading
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Inarticulate Authenticity
Thirty-six years ago, Robert Bellah and others, in their seminal book “Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life” identified a problem and prophesied its social consequences – that of political and social polarization. We live in those prophesied consequences today. The problem, as Bellah and his co-authors identified it, was the tendency… Continue reading
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The Moral Stakes in Being Authentic
“It turns out that the concept of common goods is constitutive of pursuing one’s interests.” Continue reading
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ONE FEAST, DIVERSE DISHES: Inviting Canadians to a Feast of Stories
“…our “politically correct concerned” society fails to provide new avenues for intellectual dialogue outside traditional intellectual engagement; so where can we find such opportunities? ” Continue reading
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Hannah Arendt: Politics – Authenticity, Mass Society and the Private Realm
Arendt invokes the realm of privacy, which is the realm of persons who are significant others to the individual. These significant others are the context for the emergence of an individual. In other words, the realm of privacy includes our social sphere where each of those significant others has a reciprocal relationship with each other. … Continue reading
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A Ritual Nurturing of Freedom
“…with the surprising eradication of relatively unconscious structures that housed and empowered a certain inspiring model of human flourishing, we may want to reconsider how we have housed and empowered human flourishing.” Continue reading
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The Freedom Convoy: Peckford’s Self-defeating Argument
Mr. Peckford and Mr. Trudeau advocate a happy individual who is ripe for manipulation… Continue reading
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Charles Taylor: The Malaise of Modernity in the 21 Century
he Malaise of Modernity also provides a deeper account of self-fulfillment: the true realization of our gifts demands that we escape the citadel of selfishness and recognize the ethical demands that give real depths to ourselves. In doing so, there is more than some reason for optimism. 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 