reflections about the art of reflecting…
There’s an ugly aspect to these “new atheists” I’ve encountered over the years, whether online (Internet Infidels) or in person: speculation is anathema to them.
Like many in academia or in the sciences, they accumulate huge amounts of data and information from studies and statistics, but they’re too cowardly to venture to speculate on the larger ramifications of this information or try to connect it all into a theory. Why? Continue reading Shortcomings of “New Atheism”
When it comes to art and opinion, we are always reminded of the latin maxim: De gustibus non est disputandum (There’s no disputing taste). However, in the anime Hyouka (13th episode) the issue of art and subjectivity is raised by two high school girls, between Mayaka Ibara and her senpai, the president of the manga club. Continue reading Are all opinions of art equal?
While I’ve read several works in literature that could pass as nihilistic, it wasn’t until Fate/Zero I could say I’ve come across a truly nihilistic masterpiece. Even the classic Neon Genesis Evangelion did not reach this nadir of such depraved nihility. Gen Urobuchi, the writer of Fate/Zero has expressed similar sentiments in his other works such as Puella Magi Madoka Magica, but Fate/Zero serves as a platform that displays a potpourri of various philosophies that are exposed one by one as fictitious or illusory.
In this blog I will analyze how hypocrisy is a master vice that includes three of the new seven deadly vices – humility, self-deception and prudery.
Hypocrisy is the respect vice pays virtue. – La Rochefoucauld
Hypocrisy is essentially an action where one pretends to hold clear and recognized set of values or attitudes but actually doesn’t. Despite choosing vice, the hypocrite understands that virtue is superior and assumes its facade. Therefore, the hypocrite is not being dishonest about good or evil, but rather himself. Continue reading Master Vice: Hypocrisy
The original seven deadly vices had two subdivisions: spiritual (pride, envy, wrath) and corporal (sloth, greed, gluttony and lust). After listing the new seven deadly vices, I began to reconsider them as a whole and realized that they should reflect some fundamental opposites or antitheses. I decided on two master vices: Intolerance and Hypocrisy. In a sense, intolerance is opposed to hypocrisy because the intolerant rejects external difference, while the hypocrite denies or conceals one’s own difference. Continue reading Master Vice: Intolerance
There are two aspects of boredom: Kurzeweile (short while) and Langeweile (long while).
Langeweile is the condition of modernity and one isn’t held accountable for being born in a certain epoch. However kurzeweile is a response to a short stretch of time where nothing happens. Continue reading New Seven Deadly Vices: Boredom
“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves from other people that in the end we disguise ourselves from ourselves.” La Rochefoucauld
Humility is often just a feigned submissiveness employed to dominate others. It is a stratagem of pride, which lowers itself that it may raise itself; and though pride wears a thousand masks, it is never better disguised than when it wears the mask of humility itself. — La Rochefoucauld Continue reading New Seven Deadly Vices: Humility
One of the laziest things in life is copying something or being a copy of an original. Continue reading New Seven Deadly Vices: Mediocrity
This will be my first time to attempt a “review” of anime (Japanese animated shows), and I think a good review is the fine line between fan-boy-ism and elitism, one that is honest with passion, but always facing the direction of the ideal anime. Because I’m a johnny-come-lately to anime, the actual best shows I watched in 2011 are Revolutionary Girl Utena, Bakemonogatari, and Bokurano. Continue reading Best anime of 2011