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Quote by Simon Critchley

“Peace is nothing more than the regulation of the psycho-political economy of awe and reverential fear, of using the threat of terror in order to bind citizens to the circuit of their subjection.”

Quote by Simon Critchley

Book:Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance

Work

Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance

This book delves into the philosophical concepts of commitment and resistance in the context of political and ethical discourse. more

Author

Simon Critchley

Simon Critchley is a British philosopher known for his contributions to existentialism and ethics. His work covers a wide range of topics, including political philosophy, aesthetics, and moral philosophy. Critchley's research interests include the ideas of philosophers such as Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Foucault. more

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“In the US, what passes for Christianity - and it is, to say the least, a highly perverse, possessive individualist and capitalist version of what I would see as Christ's messianic ethical communism, to say the least - is a new civil religion, a civil religion of freedom.”

Christ Christianity Versions Communism Ethical Capitalist Possessive

Author:Simon Critchley

“Poetry is difficult, I mean interesting poetry, not confessional babble or emotive propaganda. Reading a new poet is discovering an entire world, what Stevens called a 'mundo' and it takes a lot of time to orientate oneself in such a world. What we have to learn to do then, as teachers and militants of a poetic insurgency, is to encourage people to learn to love the difficulty of poetry. I simply do not understand much of the poetry that I love.”

People World Mean Reading Difficult Interesting Teacher Poet Difficulty Oneself Propaganda Poetry Is Poetic Discovering Insurgency

Author:Simon Critchley

“My favourite writer is Beckett and I keep going back to wallow in his work like a deep pool of dark humour or like an oxygen tank when you can't breath in a world consumed by piety, hypocrisy and self-satisfaction.”

World Self Dark Humour Breaths Satisfaction Hypocrisy Keep Going Pool Favourite Oxygen Consumed Tanks Piety Beckett Self-satisfaction

Author:Simon Critchley

“Humour is human. Why? Well, because the Philosopher, Aristotle, says so.”

Humans Wells Humour Philosopher

Book:On Humour

Source: On Humour

“Now, if laughter is proper to the human being, then the human being who does not laugh invites the charge of inhumanity, or at least makes us somewhat suspicious.”

Ifs Humans Doe Human Beings Laughing Laughter Invites Suspicious Inhumanity

Book:On Humour

Source: On Humour

“Any philosophical and theoretical assurance that laughter is unique to the human being becomes somewhat unsure when one turns to the anthropological literature.”

Humans Turns Literature Human Beings Unique Laughter Philosophical Assurance Theoretical Unsure

Author:Simon Critchley

“We might even define the human as a dynamic process produced by a series of identifications and misidentifications with animality.”

Humans Might Process Series Identification

Book:On Humour

Source: On Humour

“When the animal becomes human, the effect is pleasingly benign and we laugh outloud, "Okay come clean now. This isn't really about hunting, is it?" But when the human becomes animal, the effect is disgusting, and if we laugh at all, then it is what Beckett calls the "mirthless laugh", which laughs at that which is unhappy.”

Ifs Humans Animal Laughing Effects Okay Clean Unhappy Hunting Disgusting Benign Beckett

Author:Simon Critchley

“I've always been very keen on Pascal, and what I'm most keen on in Pascal is his emphasis upon human wretchedness. He has a phrase which goes something like 'Anxiety, boredom and inconstancy, that is the human condition' and I've always been very partial to that.”

Humans Conditions Anxiety Phrases Boredom Human Condition Emphasis Wretchedness Pascal Inconstancy

Author:Simon Critchley

“Melancholia for Freud is the relationship that the subject takes up with respect to itself from the position of what he calls conscience or what he later calls the super-ego. And that can be lacerated - if you think of the anorexic who sees themselves from the perspective of the image they have, of the image they have of themselves in the mirror which is false - that would be the super-ego. Super-ego is what generates depression and it is what has to be dealt with in psychoanalysis.”

Ifs Thinking Would Be Subjects Position Perspective Ego Conscience Mirrors Psychoanalysis Anorexics

Author:Simon Critchley