Chronicles of Love and Resentment

The idea of questioning another’s “agency” is contrary to our common-sense perspective on human actions, which, aside from purely reflexive acts like pulling one’s hand out of a fire, are understood...

In 1993, “paleoconservative” Sam Francis gave a talk entitled “Anarcho-Tyranny, U.S.A.” that was reprinted in the July 1994 and more recently in the January 2023 issue of Chronicles magazine—not to...

The previous Chronicle on Sartre and Nishida gave us reason to praise the discovery of nothingness— the free space of the human scene —in the two hemispheres of the civilized Northern world, in...

For Henri, Percy, Penny, and Trikey (and Stacey) My previous Bear Theory essays, Chronicles 470 , 654 , and 679 , appeared between September 2014 and December 2020. Since then, having turned 80...

In memoriam René Girard As sometimes happens with foreign books sent as “free samples” to avoid paying customs fees, Grasset was obliged to send more than one copy of this volume before one finally...

1 – Pour Benoît Benoît Chantre’s narrative of René Girard’s life after he had made his reputation with Mensonge romantique et verité romanesque, while necessarily of somewhat less human interest...

The phenomenon of celebrity as a modern version of charisma is experienced as a transcendental intrusion into daily life, a kind of dubious sacrality. Encountering HaShem at the burning bush poses...

For Matthew Schneider As the domination of those who privilege resentment and victimhood continues to increase throughout the domain of Western civilization (not however without some recent healthy...

For Gabriel My step-grandson Gabriel Danon recently recommended to me Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur’s Réflexions sur la question antisémite (Grasset & Fasquelle, 2019), translated into English as...

Modern philosophy begins, one might say, with Descartes’ self-centered syllogism, “I think, therefore I am”; cogito ergo sum ; je pense, donc je suis . The idea that my existence must be confirmed...

I don’t believe the word “sacred” appeared in my The Origin of Language (TOOL), which appeared in 1981. Now, 43 years later, I think more and more about the sacred, not in order to “turn to God”...

This is a draft version of the first part of my GASC talk this June in Tokyo; the second part will deal with the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida As the Western-centered world order established...

In our conference in Nagoya in 2017 (see Chronicles 515 – 516 ) I compared the paradoxes of the Greek Eleatic philosopher Zeno, the best known of which is that of Achilles and the Tortoise, with...

Generative Anthropology (GA) emerged from a lively intellectual universe, now largely dissipated, involving the interaction of “post-metaphysical” philosophers and miscellaneous intellectuals, mostly...

At least since Hegel’s attempt at the dialectical fusion of philosophy with the totality of human history, Western thinkers have felt the urgency of escaping the realm of metaphysics inaugurated by...

In a number of Chronicles (notably #749 and #797 ) I have drawn a parallel between two taboos: that on alluding to the firstness of the Jews (the “chosen people”) as an explanation for...

If there is one thing I can guarantee about the antisemitic rioters of the past few months, it is that none of them intend to vote for Donald Trump. But something that does not appear to have been...

Since the three revolutions at the end of the 18 th century, industrial, American and French, ushered in the birth of the modern era, the West has dominated every aspect of world culture. To the...

No doubt there are varieties of Christianity, such as Unitarianism, that reject the miraculous element in the Trinitarian church, considering Jesus merely as an exemplary human being and denying the...

In response to the recent renascence of antisemitism, a number of analysts have made the point that the United States is not simply a Christian nation but a Judeo-Christian one, founded on a...

The return of the Jews to Israel/”Palestine” is perhaps the best demonstration in the history of the West of the persistence of sacred in contrast to secular projects. One has only to recall the line...

I As the Western-centered world order established after WWII appears to be losing its grip, most significantly in the West itself, considerations of “scholarship” and “theory” can no longer be...

… the secular is not merely the indifferent site of human flourishing imagined by the prevailing liberal order. It is a metaphysical construct that defines our “social imaginary,” offering a total...

I In the previous Chronicle , I pointed out the curious fact that in the upcoming presidential election, respectability,” as represented, say, by the Swifties, would definitely choose Harris over...

This Chronicle is dedicated to the memory of the martyrs of last October 7 and of the sufferings they endured and continue to endure. A long-time Girardian once called me the group’s “elder...

A mere generation ago, the victory of the West in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the “scientific socialism” it purported to embody provoked a revival of optimistic secular apocalypticism, on...

“The Jews . . . and the bicyclists” On October 24, 2024, an item appeared whose title is both unsurprising and outrageous:...

For Michael Caplan Over my thirty years or so of Internet postings of these Chronicles , I have acquired a couple of pen pals among fellow Jews slightly younger than myself able to relate to what I...

The notion of paradox may be said to begin with Zeno and Achilles never catching the tortoise, which we found in Chronicles 515 – 516 to be equivalent to Mahayana Buddhist Nagarjuna’s idea of the...

Ever since Adam Katz and I made an agreement with ISGAP (Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy) to publish a book on antisemitism, I have not ceased to point out that shunning all...

“The Rubicon” inevitably comes up when one thinks about the origin of human language. However many similarities we can find between our language and those of other species, it cannot be doubted that...

In a recent article from the Jewish News Syndicate , “The Great Divide” by Malka Eisenberg (https://www.jns.org/the-great-divide-2/), the author insists, in contradiction to those who claim that the...

In Chronicle 816 , reflecting on the complaint of a religious thinker that in today’s world religious thought is no longer taken seriously led me to consider the connection between the dismissal of...

For Patrick Coleman Patrick was the first professor I hired when I became chairman of the UCLA French Department back in 1974. He held his PhD from Yale, having worked with Paul de Man, and had a...

Since 1941 I have lived through quite a few elections, but 2024’s was surely the most crucial. The defeat of the partisans of what we should call the “Iranian option” in the Middle East prevented...

Calling this a “good time” for anything might appear facetious. But the old saw about the “ill wind” has often been more relevant than would be expected. Perhaps GA’s hypothesis remains all but...

Some concepts are worth belaboring more than others, and my reason for returning to the epistemology of resentment is that it is constantly evolving. I’m sure one can find examples of this...