For me, the modernist triumvirate of Unamuno, Jose Ortega y Gasset and Julien Benda are profoundly underappreciated but morally, philosophically and intellectually brave and capacious thinkers. They were figures who tried to apprehend and appreciate the human being in full, men who grounded their moral and ethical judgments in an abiding understanding of life's deep complexities.
I agree! They're often overlooked because they don't fit easily into later trends. But they're profound and important thinkers. I'm still trying to grapple with the depth of Revolt of the Masses; there are so many insights there that I find it hard to grasp the whole.
About the contradiction of death, Nietzsche wrote in Zarathustra about a tight rope walker. "You knew you would die some day because of your job. At least you can die knowing you were such a man."
It was interesting to me that when asking, what makes us human, no one mentioned perhaps the most unique and interesting things about us: We worship. Our need, perhaps instinct, to believe in and worship is such a distinctive that it is amazing that it does not come immediately to mind. We know that humans worshiped before we have evidence of speech. Worship is so ubiquitous that we could be called, homo-cultus rather than homo-sapiens. We are the creature who worships.
11:30 How do you spell Shun Zi? Is this close or are we talking of Sun Zi of 'The Art of War' fame? I'd like to be able to cite the source of your quote (or, provisionally, can I just cite you?? I do not know how you pronounce your surname)
Why do Art ? The world without art is just Eh. Man is a creature with culture. There is an old way of looking at the soul as having compartments. Earth, water , fire, air. They are metaphors for things to be mastered in yourself,
