Tag Archives: philosophy/religion

Matuo Basho: The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by.”

Matsuo Basho

The Narrow Road to the Deep North (translation by Nobuyuki Yuasa)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Ivan Illich on the Circumscribed Life

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.”

Ivan Illich

Tools for Conviviality, ch. 3 (1973)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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William Holmes McGuffey

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“William Holmes McGuffey: (1800-1873) American educator and textbook compiler, College teacher and president, McGuffey was known to thousands of Americans as the author of their first schoolbook. The series began in 1836, with the First and Second Readers. The Primer, Third, and Fourth Readers appeared in 1837, the Speller, and the Rhetorical Guide in 1841, the Fifth and Sixth Readers in 1844 and 1857. He collaborated with his younger brother, Alexander Hamilton McGuffey, on the “Eclectic Series.” The books sold 122 million copies, with new editions issued as late as 1920. McGuffey was a political conservative who supported the Hamiltonians rather than the Jeffersonians; his Readers reflect his point of view.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Inspirational Words from Helen Keller in This Difficult Time

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable”

Helen Keller

Let Us Have Faith (1940)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Bushido

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Bushido: (Japanese, ‘way of the warrior‘) At first an unwritten code of ethics, devised for the moral and spiritual guidance of the entire military class by military leaders during the Kamakura period, bushido was codified during the Tokugawa regime. Emphasis was always placed upon personal and reciprocal loyalty and duty, both among and between samurai and lord. By the Tokugawa period, the code had evolved to incorporate both the aesthetic and ascetic elements that are contained in Zen discipline.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Ovid’s 4 Ages of Civilization

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Gold * Silver * Bronze * Iron

According to Ovid’s telling of history, our Golden Age was the time when Cronos ruled heaven and when gods lived amongst mankind and no one labored—that time when earth was populated by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The Silver Age was when Zeus ruled over heaven and mankind was taught agriculture and architecture—which we can tie to the inventions of the Neolithic, around 12,000 BC. The Bronze Age was the time of the first great wars, of temple- and empire-building but also of faith and order, which we can directly connect with the ancient civilizations in Iraq, Egypt, Anatolia, China, and India. The Iron Age is our own time, when nation states were forged and mankind learned to mine, navigate, write, and trade. But, as Ovid notes, mankind also became ‘warlike, greedy, and impious. Truth, modesty and loyalty are nowhere to be found.’”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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Nietzsche on the Motivation of a Philosopher

Posted on April 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

“If you want to understand a philosopher, do not ask what he says, but find out what he wants.”

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Term of Art: Voluntary Associations

Posted on April 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Voluntary Associations: Any public, formally constituted, and non-commercial organization of which membership is optional, within a particular society. Examples include churches, political parties, pressure groups, leisure associations or clubs, neighborhood groups, and (sometimes) trade unions and professional associations. In some theories of democracy, emphasis is placed on the important role such groups can play in fostering participation in the civil society, and thus in maintaining social order.”

Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

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Term of Art: Taboo

Posted on April 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Taboo: The term taboo derives from the Tongan ‘tabu,’ meaning ‘sacred” or ‘inviolable.’ However, its contemporary use is broader, most generally meaning a social and often sacred prohibition put upon certain things, people, or acts, which render them untouchable or unmentionable. The most famous taboo is the near-universal incest taboo, prohibiting sexual or marriage relations between particular categories of kin. According  to both Sigmund Freud (Totem and Taboo, 1938) and Claude Levi-Strauss (The Elementary Structures of Kinship, 1969), society itself originated with the incest taboo. Other authors have stressed the function performed by taboos in society. Raymond Firth (in Symbols Public and Private, 1973) interpreted taboo as a mechanism of social control. In Purity and Danger (1966), Mary Douglas drew attention to the way in which taboo serves as a social marker, creating and maintaining social classifications.”

Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

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Aesop’s Fables: “The Crow and the Pitcher”

Posted on April 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK: here is a lesson plan on Aesop’s fable “The Crow and the Pitcher” along with its reading and worksheet. You’ll notice that the comprehension questions are sparse and simple. However, as with almost everything you will encounter on Mark’s Text Terminal, these are Microsoft Word documents which can be exported to a word processor of your preference, or manipulated for your use as it is.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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