(6) Consider the following short descriptions of different kinds of consciousness of self. Which of the selves, if any, do you identify with? (a) The cosmological self. The self is either unconscious of itself or only conscious of itself insofar as it is identified with a cosmological myth or classificatory system, e.g., totemism. Ask a…
One of the peculiar ironies of being a human self in the Cosmos: A stranger approaching you in the street will in a second’s glance see you whole, size you up, place you in a way in which you cannot and never will, even though you have spent a lifetime with yourself, live in the Century…
According to a recent poll, more Americans set store in astrology than in science or God. 00000 The first question is: Why is it that both descriptions seem to fit you—or, for that matter, why do you seem to recognize yourself in the self-analysis of all twelve astrological signs? Or, to put it another way,…
We are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves … Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in our selves we are bound to be mistaken, for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto, “Each is the farthest away from himself”—as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers.…
Still on a Percy theme, the Walker Percy Weekend organizers have announced that tickets go on sale today. existentialismphilosophical literaturePhilosophyWalker PercyWalker Percy Weekend
I experience the sensation that the world really ended in 1916 and that we’ve been living in a dream ever since. These good fellows have spent their entire lives working, raising families, fighting Nazis, worrying about Communism, yet they’ve really been zapped by something else. We haven’t been zapped by the Nazis and the Communists.…
“Hear this, Tom. I’ll make it short and sweet. We’re not talking about some bush-league medical project—fluoridating water to cure tooth decay. We’re not even talking about curing AIDS. We’re not even talking medicine, Tom. We’re talking about the decay of the social fabric. The American social fabric. I’m not telling you anything you don’t…
This excerpt is quite possibly Percy’s most intense piece of writing at least within the domain of his fiction writing. In the 1930s I found myself visiting distant cousins in Germany. My father took me. They lived in the university town of Tübingen, where my cousin Dr. Hans Jäger was professor of psychiatry. He had…
I look at him steadily. “That every society has a right to protect itself against its enemies. That a society like an organism has a right to survive. 00000 I know that you work with dreams. What I want to ask you is this: Is there something which is not a dream or even a…
“Tom, would you like to hear my own private theory of the nature of man?” The nature of man. I can’t stand theories about the nature of man. I’d rather listen to Robin Leach and watch Barnaby Jones. “Well, actually I think we’d better track down Lucy—” But he’s got going on his theory of…
manwithoutqualities 