display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Values do not accumulate: a generation contributes something new only by trampling on what was unique in the preceding generation. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (A Short History of Decay [1949], 6 'We') | |
| A reaction: That may seem true for a Frenchman or a Romanian, but it doesn't feel true of British culture, which seems to me to have accumulated values over the last five hundred years. Before 1500 it seems to me to be a foreign country. We may be near the end! |
| 15772 | A thing's active function is its end [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A thing's active function is its end. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1050a16) | |
| A reaction: This sort of remark is the basis of modern teleological functionalism about the mind. I think that is misguided. Don't define things by their function. They have functions because of intrinsic character. |
| 19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: As for lovers, they would be hateful if among their grimaces the presentiment of death did not hover. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (A Short History of Decay [1949], 1 'Gamut') | |
| A reaction: A nice existential corrective, if you were planning to build an ethical system around a rather sentimental idea of love! If you are not gripped by a latent fear that your beloved may die, I doubt whether you are in love. |