We get what we deserve. They are our elected officials.
In any event, I don't believe in instant philosophy, because interesting problems take a long time to understand and work out. Just think of the problems of truth and justice.
I pity the babies whose mothers are busy texting trivialities instead of playing with their children; I pity the children who are tethered to their cell phones instead of playing ball; I pity the adolescents who are wasting their best years holding one of those artefacts instead of the hand of another young person.
All philosophers can do is to abstain from helping the aggressors and to enjoin social scientists to tell the truth instead of joining the choir of liars and hypocrites.
The motto of science is not just Pauca but rather Plurima ex paucissimis - the most out of the least.
All genuine philosophy transcends national boundaries. Patriotic philosophies are just nationalist ideologies.
We deem valuable whatever is likely to meet our needs or wishes (individual values) and whatever is likely to help protect or attain social goals (social values). However, this is not a dichotomy, for some individual values, such as truth, are needed to secure some social values, such as mutual trust, and some social values, such as peace, are required to pursue some individual values, such as good health.
Remember that whatever anyone does, it is an effort to meet a need.
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
What is art if not a concentrated and impassioned effort to make something with the little we have, the little we see?
It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright were they dull.