isaac smith

“Humanism is something entirely different. It is a theme or rather a set of
themes that have reappeared on several occasions over time in European
societies; these themes always tied to value judgments have obviously varied
greatly in their content as well as in the values they have preserved.
Furthermore they have served as a critical principle of differentiation. In the
seventeenth century there was a humanism that presented itself as a critique of
Christianity or of religion in general; there was a Christian humanism opposed
to an ascetic and much more theocentric humanism. In the nineteenth century
there was a suspicious humanism hostile and critical toward science and
another that to the contrary placed its hope in that same science. Marxism has
been a humanism; so have existentialism and personalism; there was a time
when people supported the humanistic values represented by National
Socialism and when the Stalinists themselves said they were humanists.
From this we must not conclude that everything that has ever been linked with
humanism is to be rejected but that the humanistic thematic is in itself too
supple too diverse too inconsistent to serve as an axis for reflection. And it is a
fact that at least since the seventeenth century what is called humanism has
always been obliged to lean on certain conceptions of man borrowed from
religion science or politics. Humanism serves to color and to justify the
conceptions of man to which it is after all obliged to take recourse.”
― Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader

“Adam seemed clothed in a viscosity that slowed his movements and held his thoughts down. He saw the world through gray water. Now and then his mind fought its way upward, and when the light broke in it brought him only a sickness of the mind, and he retired into the grayness again.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“This belief in the truth of the image leaves us especially vulnerable to ideological coercion (which is not to say, of course, that the image cannot be subversive as well). The image, much more than the word, inspires trust, and this trust is precisely what ideology hopes to engender. This is why fascists rely so heavily on imagery. In fact, cultural theorist Paul Gilroy links the rise of the image to the rise of fascism in the mid-twentieth century.”
― Todd McGowan, The End of Dissatisfaction: Jacques Lacan and the Emerging Society of Enjoyment

“I dream of a moment when, without my asking, my actions will betray completely this part of me that asks for nothing”
― Yukio Mishima, Thirst for Love