Hannah Arendt
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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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The Friendship Recession: Part 2 – Friendship as Both Needed and Discovered
is transformed into something much more important, something vital to the life of the world, when the people who share the table are engaging in the practices of love and of thinking. Continue reading
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Arendt and the Public World Under Threat
We are now at the beginning of the end of the modern university. The same disease that polarizes us makes the University less and less relevant. This is not an economic argument; it is an existential one. (With updated links) Continue reading
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Hannah Arendt – Friendship for the University and Polity
A meal is transformed into something much more important, something vital to the life of the world when the people who share the table are engaging in the practices of love and of thinking. Continue reading
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Arguments Matter, Part 2: Being Correct Isn’t Enough
Arguments matter because we live an embedded life in which reality determines moral life, and moral life determines reality. In other words, is it not only true but also legitimate? Continue reading
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Changing Language; Changing Identity
If common sense and superstition are two extremes on a knowledge spectrum, then a hard distinction contained in the folkish idea of speakers and doers is cozying up to superstition. 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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Authenticity Under Threat, Part 2: Alienation in Mass Society
As we saw from Part 1 in this series of posts (which I encourage you to read before going on), our current systems of knowledge and power are not so much concerned with the authentic identity of concrete persons (you and I). Those systems are primarily concerned with objects of study including such commonplace perspectives Continue reading
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Adam Smith: The Moral Dimensions of Economic Life
Personally, I am informed by both a Continental-Philosophical tradition and a communitarian Christian religious background that criticized Adam Smith as hostile to charity and a theoretical bastion of “self-interest”; it would not be a stretch to say that both modern economics and its critics have failed to connect Smith’s moral anthropology to his more famous… Continue reading
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Contrived Individual Responsibility: the Danger of the New Conservatives
“…it is physically impossible to pick oneself up by one’s own bootstraps…” 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 