A radical is a prodigal son. For him, the world is a strange place whose contours have to be explored according to one's destiny. He may eventually return to the house of his elders, but the return is by choice, and not, as of those who stayed behind, of unblinking filial obedience. |
But in action, one defies one's character. |
Europe, in legend, has always been the home of subtle philosophical discussion; America was the land of grubby pragmatism. |
I am too weary to listen, too angry to hear. |
I prefer to do repertoire that's new for everyone. |
Shlomo told us he'd been to New Zealand recently. He told us we must have a window-seat when we land in Wellington because it's the most beautiful landing anywhere in the world. |
Technology, like art, is a soaring exercise of the human imagination. |
The impulse of the journalist is to be novel, yet to relate his curiosities to the urgencies of the moment; the philosopher seeks what he conceives to be true, regardless of the moment. |
The intellectual takes as a starting point his self and relates the world to his own sensibilities; the scientist accepts an existing field of knowledge and seeks to map out the unexplored terrain. |
The position of the Jews through the centuries, a stranger in every land, no voice, no ban their own, deepens this traumatic condition. For not only have they no home as their own as a people, but within each alien culture the strange gods tear away the sons and there is no home in the family. |
When theology erodes and organization crumbles, when the institutional framework of religion begins to break up, the search for a direct experience which people can feel to be religious facilitates the rise of cults. |