Tag: different light
‘No Longer Human’ Captures the Paradox of the Social Loner
A gloomy young man feels deeply alienated from society. He is preoccupied with his inability to reveal himself to others but has learned to act the clown; he notes that, since childhood, he has “seemed to lack the qualifications of a human being.” He feels distant from his family and freely criticizes his friends. He trains his considerable wit equally on social norms—which he finds almost uniformly silly—and on himself, for his unease in navigating them. He treats his alienation
I’m a Philosopher. Don’t Ask Me to Always Be Deep.
Here is a story I have heard from more than one professional philosopher, though it has never, at least not yet, happened to me: You are sitting on a plane, the person next to you asks what you do, you tell them you are a philosopher, and they ask, “So, what are your sayings?” When a philosopher opens their mouth, people expect deep things to come out of it. Philosophers don’t always enjoy this; to avoid it they might