Being a humanist means trying to behave decently
without expectation of rewards or punishment
after you are dead. ~ Kurt Vonnegut-2007
1958
All right, let's move to our social relationships,
in our feelings toward our neighbors, toward our friends.
What's happening to man in those spheres?
In the first place, I would say our social relationships are relatively shallow.
We are actually afraid to be intimate with people,
many people even with their wives and husbands.
Are we humanized yet?
Somebody said "Jacque, don't you believe in love?"
Everybody uses that word.
So I ask most people "Do you like everything you've ever done in life?"
The answer is "No". Sometimes you love yourself,
sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes "What a dumb thing I did!"
You understand? Love is a fluctuating thing; it's not fixed.
Know thyself. ~ Plato
There is only one moral as there is only one geometry. ~ Voltaire
You mentioned what we think about, or what we talk about anyway, on Sundays.
What about man in relationship to his religion?
I think here we find the same phenomenon.
We have a religious renaissance today in America, as many people say.
I would say this religious renaissance, 90 percent of it, is the greatest danger
true religious experience has ever been confronted with. - Why?
Because what is attempted in this so-called religious renaissance
is kind of a mixture
between Dale Carnegie "How to win friends and be successful"
and the norms of the Bible, of the Old and New Testament,
and in a kind of clever and sometimes not so clever way.
People try to combine the two.
That is actually very much the contrary of the spirit of our true religious tradition.
Normalization has become one of the great instruments of power. ~ Michel Foucault
Who's this guy with the white collar that says "I now pronounce you man and wife"?
Where the hell did he come from?
I fear the man of a single book. ~ Thomas Aquinas
In the Bible it says "Two people joined by love
cannot be put asunder by anyone."
This guy doesn't bring people together. He orders you together!
And real love is not forced.
Real love is you being with the person you want to be with.
It's hard for people to understand, but real love means
that you've got hands;
they're called extensional devices.
You can pick up a bottle, turn it around, look at it.
A dog can't do that.
So he cocks his head this way and the other way
when he sees something strange.
So, real love means extensionality.
The human body is the best picture of the human soul. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
"I hope my boyfriend loves me."
That doesn't do anything to make him loving.
It's your conduct and his values that determine who he picks.
Nature never deceives us, it is we who deceive ourselves. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau
He thinks he picks the girl of his dreams,
but he's been watching movies, reading novels, so he goes toward girls
that look like what he believes is the right person.
Everybody experiences far more than he understands.
Yet it is experience, rather than understanding,
that influences behavior. ~ Marshall McLuhan
If they show a person with a crooked nose, mean, always mean,
and the good-looking guy beats him up, see,
the girls look for the good-looking guy.
But that good-looking guy becomes a monster if she hates him.
That face is no longer pleasant.
The happenings of nature are like rolling dice,
rather than like revolving stars.
They are controlled by probability laws, not by causality,
and the scientist resembles a gambler more than a prophet.
He can tell you only his best posits.
He never knows beforehand whether they will come true.
He is a better gambler though than the man at the green table,
because his statistical methods are superior. ~ Hans Reichenbach
Now, if you fall in love at sixteen,
and then you fall in love again at thirty, it's different
than the kind of love you felt when you fell in love at sixteen.
At forty, you have a very different picture of what you want.
So, love is not a constant.
The trouble with it is in the future, now you can't help this,
you will love anybody you meet.
If you married a guy because he has seven qualities you love,
and then you meet another guy with forty qualities you love,
you're going to love that person.
You're going to get confused, "Do I really love my husband, or don't I?"
Sometimes you do; sometimes you don't.
There's nothing wrong with them; they're reflecting their culture.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
There's nothing wrong with anybody. I'm trying to tell you something else.
We never make a mistake in our lives.
When you don't know enough about human behavior,
you go out with the wrong people, and they hurt you. That's not a mistake.
You're using the best tools you have.
When you fall in love with the wrong girl
or you fall in love with the wrong guy,
your value systems become updated,
or you become bitter, say "I'm never getting married"
depending on your experience.
So, in the future you will love anyone that's loveable.
You understand what I'm saying? There's not a thing you can do about it.
While luxury and profaneness have been increasing on one hand,
on the other, benevolence and compassion
toward all forms of human woe have increased in a manner not known before,
from the earliest ages of the world. ~ John Wesley
So, if you really learn what the word 'love' means,
it means to be extensional to other people,
to help, be friendly to other nations.
If they lack resources, help them. Help them develop their resources.
But if you keep things to yourself, you'll build hatred.
I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards. ~ Abraham Lincoln