Join 📚Jof’S Book Highlights

A batch of the best highlights from what Jophin's read, .

the observation that all ‘cultures’, ‘subcultures’ or ‘scenes’ are based on central distinctions by which the field of human behavioural possibilities is subdivided into polarized classes. Thus the ascetic ‘cultures’ know the central distinction of complete versus incomplete, the religious ‘cultures’ that of sacred versus profane, the aristocratic ‘cultures’ that of noble versus common, the military ‘cultures’ that of brave versus cowardly, the political ‘cultures’ that of powerful versus powerless, the administrative ‘cultures’ that of superior versus subordinate, the athletic ‘cultures’ that of excellence versus mediocrity, the economic ‘cultures’ that of wealth versus lack, the cognitive ‘cultures’ that of knowledge versus ignorance, and the sapiental ‘cultures’ that of illumination versus blindness.

You Must Change Your Life

Peter Sloterdijk

People who believe in conversion believe in intractable certainties; and with this comes the assumption that only certainties are dependable. People are only ever converted to something they believe they can depend on. Winnicott’s striking formulation at least allows us to wonder how dependence and uncertainty can go together: clearly, our dependence on uncertainty – our dependence on our scepticism – is going to be quite different to our dependence on what we take to be guaranteed (God, nature, the leader, the ideology, psychoanalysis, the mother, and so on).

On Wanting to Change

Adam Phillips

In societies and situations where coercion is less overt or absent, and inequalities more opaque, the question of ... how to interpret quiescence is all the more acute.

Power: A Radical View

Steven Lukes

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