Into the Black

This remark hurts me not so much for the suggestion that I and my wife are silly or childish for grieving over the death of a cat as for the implication that Yoda’s life was insignificant. I thought, “What if Yoda could hear and actually understand the insensitive remarks from where he is at present?” Whenever I imagine the hurt in Yoda’s innocent big blue eyes occasioned by these hurtful words, it was all I could to do to keep myself from crying. But whence came the idea about the insignificance of the life of an animal compared to that of a human being? I think there are three possible explanations for the prevalence of this distorted, mistaken belief in the supremacy of human life over those of the other creatures. First, it may be traced to the Judeo-Christian belief that God created man after His own image, and that He bestowed on him the power and authority to do with all other living creatures as he pleased. This belief places human beings at the center of the grand scheme o...

One of the enduring debates in the history of philosophy is that which concerns the question of human freedom. This debate has produced two camps representing two seemingly diametrically opposed views about freedom: the Marxists and the existentialists. Marxists maintain that the latitude within which human freedom may operate at any given time is determined by the existing social configuration, which, in turn, is shaped by historical circumstances that unfold in accordance with the general directions in which history is moving, but which appear as unconnected accidents. Freedom is only an illusion because in the exercise of their power to choose, humans may at best only react to the various stimuli produced by social forces, which are beyond their individual control.  In other words, they are only playing out the roles which have been written by history for them, but which seem like accidents to their unsophisticated eyes. Existentialists, on the other hand, would argue tha...