The Question Of Identity Has Separated From

In Montreal, Where I Taught In 1970, I Met Many People. The Only Ones Who Said To Me They Were Canadians, Were Jews. All The Rest Were Scotts, Irish, English, French, Swedes.

The So Called "progress," "time Marching On," Is Not A Straight Line, But A Pendulum.

We Have A Reversal Of A Longstanding Trend, From Rising Inequality Across Nations And Constant Or Declining Inequality Within Nations, To Declining Inequality Across Nations And Rising Inequality Within Them.

Lev (léon) Shestov, A Russian Jew Who Later Became A French Jew And Even Converted To Catholicism, Defined God Not By His Power To Create The Laws Of Universe, But His Ability To Break Them At Will - The Capacity For Miracles. God Could Cancel The Past! For Instance, God Could Decide Retrospectively, That Socrates Was Never Poisoned... Assimilation Demanded A Miracle: That You Stop Having Been Somebody Else Before... But Only God Can Do It.

The Woe Of Mortality Makes Humans God-like. It Is Because We Know That We Must Die That We Are So Busy Making Life. It Is Because We Are Aware Of Mortality That We Preserve The Past And Create The Future. Mortality Is Ours Without Asking--but Immortality Is Something We Must Build Ourselves. Immortality Is Not A Mere Absence Of Death; It Is Defiance And Denial Of Death. It Is 'meaningful' Only Because There Is Death, That Implacable Reality Which Is To Be Defied.