- december 11
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◁ "World history, as the bourgeois revolutionary Börne already said, is a house which has more staircases than rooms; ..."
cited by bloch, heritage of our times p. 114
- december 10
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◀ when, where, how, with whom, and how often
Sin could take an infinite variety of forms, though a commonly employed (alliterative in the Latin) formula of interrogation to be used by priests in the ritual of confession -- 'when, where, how, with whom, and how often' -- inescapably brings to mind sexual transgression.
Peter Heather's Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion
- december 9
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◁ on a certain confederation of huns
"no one could number the vastness of the cavalry contingents [so] every man was ordered to carry a stone so as to throw it down ... so as to form a mound ... a fearful sign [left] for the morrow to understand past events. And wherever they passed, they left such markers at every crossroad along their way." - the epic histories attributed to p'awtos buzand, quoted in Peter Brown's the rise of western christendom
- december 8
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◀ Priscillian of Avila, continued
"Our knowledge of Dictinius's book is derived entirely from the hostile account of its argument given by Augustine ... Dictinius saw that to assert with Priscillian the Church's possession of doctrines and documents [i.e., Apocrypha] suitable for some believers, unsuitable for others, implies that one is morally justified in concealing or darkly hinting at doctrines unfitted for the ears of the unworthy. Dictinius therefore set out to show that the Bible provided precedents for not telling all that is in one's heart..."
- december 5
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◁ Priscillian of Avila: the occult and the charismatic in the early church
"That sacrifices must be offered unshod was a Pythagorean priciple, and appears in the precepts of a number of ancient sanctuaries, opinion among ancient antiquarians being divided whether the cultic taboo was based on objection to the hide of animals or to the knots which tied the shoes."
"Augustine remarks that it is easier to persuade a confirmed drinker to forsake his bottle than the dissuade a man from walking barefoot for eight days, so great is the force of cultic custom ('praesumptio')."
"The fifth sermon of Gaudentius ... triumphantly proves from John the Baptist's protestation of his unworthiness that Jesus himself must have worn shoes which John felt too humble to untie."
- december 3
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◀ 30 December 1837. Concord, Mass. (Thoreau to Orestes Brownson)
My apology for this letter is to ask your assistance in obtaining employment. For, say what you will, this frostbitten ‘forked carrot’ of a body must be fed and clothed after all. It is ungrateful, to say the least, to suffer this much abused case to fall into so dilapidated a condition that every nothwester may luxuriate through its chinks and crevices, blasting the kindly affections it should shelter, when a few clouts would save it. Thank heaven, the toothache occurs often enough to remind me that I must be out patching the roof occasionally, and not be always keeping up a blaze upon the hearth within, with my German and metaphysical cat-sticks.
♥ | -
◁ Paolo Freire
No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.
- november 22
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◀ Kritik der Gewalt, cit Spivak , Death of a Discipline p. 33
Diese göttliche Gewalt bezeugt sich nicht durch die religiöse Überlieferung allein, vielmehr findet sie mindestens in einer geheiligten Manifestation sich auch im gegenwärtigen Leben vor. Was als erzieherische Gewalt in ihrer vollendeten Form außerhalb des Rechtes steht, ist eine ihrer Erscheinungsformen. Diese definieren sich also nicht dadurch, daß Gott selber unmittelbar sie in Wundern ausübt, sondern durch jene Momente des unblutigen, schlagenden, entsühnenden Vollzuges. Endlich durch die Abwesenheit jeder Rechtsetzung. Insofern ist es zwar berechtigt, diese Gewalt auch vernichtend zu nennen; sie ist dies aber nur relativ, in Rücksicht auf Güter, Recht, Leben u. dgl., niemals absolut in Rücksicht auf die Seele des Lebendigen.
- november 19
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◁ He is said to have extracted the word Merz from the name Commerz Bank which appeared on a piece of paper in one of his collages.
from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/merz
- november 16
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◀ Commençons donc par écarter tous les faits, car ils ne touchent point à la question.
(Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes)