person with carton with inscription love should not hurt

The romantic search for truth

For Cynics, as for Romantics, especially Novalis, truth is to be found just as much in the infinite universe as in our infinite interior. In his incomplete novel, "The Disciples at Sais" he shows different ways to approach the truth of our nature. The cynical…
Do cynics simply follow their desire?

Do cynics simply follow their desire?

If that were true, then we would be hedonists. But Epicurus' hedonism was the countermovement to eudaimonic ethics in ancient Greece. Not eudaemonia, but desire would be the greatest goal of cynics. The devil is in the details The devil - and I mean this…
The Sabine women, stolen by the Romans, settled the dispute between their fathers and the Romans

Heraclitus: Daring more war

Heraclitus is considered to be the first philosopher of the West at all. And even ancient Cynics regarded him as the first of theirs. Rightly so, as I shall show. Heraclitus sharply condemned Homer's pacifism, he demands that he should be expelled and beaten up.…
"Before you assist others, always put your oxygen mask on first."

“Before You Help Others, You Must First Help Yourself”

I come from a generation in which air travel was a luxury. On my first flight in a real commercial aircraft, I was already almost 40 years old. I was a little scared. When the stewardess explained the rules for emergencies, I listened attentively. Then…
jumping people in ecstatic

How to make death your best friend

This is the second part, which deals with the beautiful death. In the first part I showed that Epicurus, as often as he is quoted with his famous statement that death is none of our business, in truth does not free us from the fear…
Dying Every Day

Dying Every Day

Death is none of our business? -- You bet it is! Epicur wants us to do exactly what most people try to do anyway: not to think about death. It wouldn't really be any of our business. Cynics follow the exact opposite path. We want…
The godess isis, louvre, Paris

Allahu akbar: God is even greater

The last man has not only killed God. He makes everything small, according to Nietzsche in Zarathustra. He himself becomes homo economicus, a screw, in the mechanistic understanding since the Enlightenment. The last strong countermovement against this dehumanization of humankind, which was triggered by the…
Novalis was a real Romantic. The entrepreneur, philosopher and poet had nothing to do with the kitschy image we associate with Romanticism today. And he was a cynic. Real romantics are real cynics

Real romantics are real cynics

Romanticism has little to do with what most people imagine it to be today. Early Romanticism in particular was anything but " enthusiastic" and dreamy. "Gushers" were, on the contrary, even an enemy for the Romantics. Likewise, the Romantics did not want to return to…
Live is to discriminate

Live is to discriminate

As a result of Christian and post-Christian slave morality (Nietzsche) and socialist dreams, but also as a result of the domination interests of the states, egalitarianism is currently being propagated on an unprecedented scale. Discriminate, a neutral term until the 19th century, first experienced a…
a letter with a "refused" stamp

Understand the difference between acceptance and approval

One of the requirements of the client-centered approach of Carl Rogers is to accept messages from the client or the person you are talking to at all costs. Now, however, in everyday life, both in the U.S., as far as I know, but at least…