Roland Boer's Blog, page 77

Like Socrates, Derrida was a pretentious prick

And a wanker who was seriously up himself. Initially I thought these looks might be tongue-in-cheek, but I suspect not:

Alone on the Waddenzee

I never thought it would be possible – to be alone, entirely alone on the Waddenzee. Having dismounted from my bicycle, I stood on the northern dyke of Friesland in the Netherlands, looking out over the sea towards the Wadden Islands. Not a boat was in sight. After a few moments I looked landwards, down into the fields and realised no one was there either, not even a village in the distance. How was this possible in a tiny country with almost 20 million people? I had always imagined that the...

On sleeping in one's office

One of the many cultural boundaries I seem to cross: sleeping in my office. Unfortunately, I've recently been told I can't do it anymore. Why? Why? Why? Been doing it for years and now I can't.

The latest episode began with a visiting scholar stint at the Australian National University in Canberra. I turned up, airbed and sleeping bag in hand, ready to make myself comfy for a few nights. Shower downstairs, well-equipped kitchen - what more could you want?

I'm completely open about it, but peopl...

What is Theology? A Conversation with Miss Marx

The conversation rolls on - between me and Miss Marx that is - on what theology actually might be. Miss Marx weighed in with 'Roland and Theology' (here), which I'll partially reproduce:

Okay, so we know what Roland thinks theology isn't. Is there anything positive to be said about what it is, on his use of the term? Yes.

[O:]nce we move past the assumption that religious belief [in a god?:] is the core or perhaps the overarching unity of theology and realize that it is one part and by no means a ne

Rehoboam Meets Machiavelli .. .There is Much Sex

So what did I do with that piece I had been asked to write on Rehoboam in Chronicles for Pancratius Beentjes? Well, he met up with Niccolo Machiavelli.
Unlike the wimpy account in Kings, it seems to me that Chronicles offers a very Machiavellian perspective - you know, cruel to be merciful, miserly to be generous, upholding all the virtues of decency and forthrightness, but only when you need to. All for the sake of peace, prosperity and an awful lot of sex, which is exactly what Rehoboam manage

Roll of a ship

Some of you may have noticed my new profile picture. Yes, that's what it pretty much looks like when the ship's on a roll. And this one wasn't too bad; the sunny day after the force 11 gale when it seemed as though the ocean was calm and flat.

Sucking the Food Scraps Off Your Dental Floss

Why? Please tell me why some people do this? You know, carefully floss your teeth and then line up all those little blobs - white, yellow, dangly etc - along with that plaque that has come off and ... run the floss through your lips and suck it all off. Why?

Canberra's Secret Plan

It has this strange pull on you, Canberra that is, especially when you get some sense of what went on with the designs of the city. For those not in the 'know', Canberra was designed by Walter Burley and Marion Mahoney Griffin. Given their enthusiasm for theosophy and anthroposophy, they hoped it would be the last great cosmic city - lined up with the universe and so on. So the plans are full of circles, triangles, nodal points, red dragons, the Pythagorean tetractys and the vesica, an ancient g

Hegel's World Spirit?

Adorno's definition of the world spirit - you know, Hegel's big thing:

'If you travel around Franconia or elsewhere in southern Germany or Austria you will be able to see how in the seventeenth century all the surviving Romanesque and Gothic churches and chapels were suddenly given a baroque facelift. It is as if they were all under the same spell. Or think for a moment of the way in which every little cafe suddenly becomes ashamed of its cosy atmosphere and tries to update itself by installing n

Time for a boycott

Joseph Gelfer put me on to this. It's from a statement by a bunch of editors from the leading journals of philosophy and history of science in Europe. They want no part of a similar project to rank journals in the European Science Foundation (ESF). In the context of a longer statement they make an obvious point that seems have been lost on the dolts and halfwits who plan these things:

Journals' quality cannot be separated from their contents and their review processes. Great research may be publi