Sublime

When Foucault imagined life as a work of art he imagined an art object. Arendt, in contrast, imagined life as a narrative, authored by the social collectivity rather than by the lone individual.

He carried himself with an air of vast knowledge. “There was, in his makeup, very little doubt,” one of the staffers was to say years later.

bathos

All have very clear first and last acts – a call to action and a final judgement – but between them too, within the constraints of reality they’re derived from, the same structure as Shakespeare, as Terence and as Horace.

Getting Present with the Past

Leadership is most essential during periods of transition, when values and institutions are losing their relevance, and the outlines of a worthy future are in controversy.

What if there is no one, true story, but only a variety of different stories that can be used in different settings and circumstances to promote different ways of being in the world?

One thing that will quickly become clear is that the prevalent ‘big picture’ of history – shared by modern-day followers of Hobbes and Rousseau alike – has almost nothing to do with the facts. But to begin making sense of the new information that’s now before our eyes, it is not enough to compile and sift vast quantities of data. A conceptual shift