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2 ideas
21746 | Unlike hate, all desires can be satisfied by love [Russell] |
Full Idea: If harmonious desires are what we should seek, love is better than hate, since, when two people love each other, both can be satisfied, whereas when they hate each other one at most can achieve the object of his desire. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (An Outline of Philosophy [1927], Ch 22) | |
A reaction: A wonderful example of cool philosophical objectivity! Of course it is not true, because the fact that two people love one another doesn't not prevent them from having some incompatible desires, as every couple knows. |
7501 | Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art? [Foucault] |
Full Idea: Couldn't everyone's life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life? | |
From: Michel Foucault (On the Genealogy of Ethics [1983], p.261) | |
A reaction: This sounds wonderfully appealing until I try to think how I would implement it. The Augustine move, from sinner to saint, is a possibility, but there is nothing good about sin. The Christian ideal, of colossal self-sacrifice, can be very heroic. |