Philosopher

The first thing you get from the humanities, when they're well taught, is critical thinking. Philosophy in particular can play that role, not just in universities but in schools as well.

Teaching has always been a very important part of my life. It is one of the ways I contribute to society. It is also a source of energy and insight.

When we feel helpless later in life, fear makes us scapegoat others. Instead of fixing the problems, we say, 'Oh, it's all their fault - those women or immigrants are infesting our country.' Rather than useful protest or constructive solutions, we get angry at these handy targets.

American men do have genuine reasons for anxiety. The traditional jobs that many men have filled are disappearing, thanks to automation and outsourcing. The jobs that remain require, in most cases, higher education, which is increasingly difficult for non-affluent families to afford.

Disgust for the female body is always tinged with anxiety, since the body symbolizes mortality.

My high school did not offer courses in philosophy, so the books that initially stimulated philosophical reflection in me were novels by Charles Dickens, Henry James, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Fear is ubiquitous in human life. It starts in infancy with our primal state of helplessness, where we can see what's going on but we can't move to get it. As we grow older we become a little more able to get what we want but then we're going to die so that gives fear another boost.

I listen to music. I particularly love Mozart.

We have fear as soon as we are born, we are born into a state of physical helplessness.

People - and I think this is particularly true of Americans - don't like to be passive. They like to seize control.

People shouldn't be teaching if they break appointments, if they behave in an irresponsible way. I try to be down-to-earth and sensible. I want students to know I'm going to work for all of them and not play favorites and that I'm really going to do my work.

It is easier to treat people as objects to be manipulated if you have never learned any other way to see them.

Most Americans do really think that Muslims all want to take over and they don't want democracy and they want nothing but Islamic law.

In my case, I give a lot to animal welfare because I think that's pretty neglected in America.

There is no reason why an American scholar cannot by himself or herself develop an adequate understanding of another culture. And I don't find any reason to suppose that the birth within a culture automatically confers understanding.

This is true across every single society; we project grossness onto a racial or gender subgroup or caste. A big part of social subordination and discrimination is to ascribe hyper-animality to other groups and use that as an excuse for subordinating them further.

I can run a long distance very slowly and I do a half marathon every year.

It's always been intriguing to me, the loveability of mortality.

Men are angry at women because they aren't doing what they are supposed to do, which is support men. They are in the workplace claiming their own rights and often outdoing men. They are daring to bring charges of sexual assault and harassment. They are just not behaving themselves!

Men in particular think that they have achieved something if they can make a woman mad, particularly if she is calm and intellectual.