Bob Schwartz

Tag: philosophy

September 9, 2026

James Hillman

“An education that in any way neglects imagination is an education into psychopathy. It is an education that results in a sociopathic society of manipulations. We learn how to deal with others and become a society of dealers.”
–James Hillman

I cannot fully explain James Hillman in this space, not briefly, not at all. If there is a badge, it might say psychologist, or Jungian psychologist, but that would be misleading, limiting and wrong. Thomas Moore, in his Prologue to A Blue Fire: The Essential Introduction to James Hillman, begins with this:

“James Hillman is an artist of psychology. If it sounds odd to call a psychologist an artist, then you, the reader, know your task as you take up this anthology. You will be challenged all along the way to rethink, to re-vision, and to reimagine. The difficulty in reading Hillman is not to learn a new bag of techniques or a new conceptual system. Hillman demands nothing short of a new way of thinking. He takes psychoanalysis out of the context of medicine and health, not only in the obvious ways, rejecting the medical model, but in subtle ways: asking us to give up fantasies of cure, repair, growth, self-improvement, understanding, and well-being as primary motives for psychological work. He is more a painter than a physician, more a musician than a social scientist, and more an alchemist than a traditional philosopher.”

Hillman wrote many books and articles, but A Blue Fire, made up of short passages from many works, is what to read to get the essence. Choosing a representative excerpt is impossible, since it is bound to miss most other points Hillman makes. But the excerpt below, covering the nature of illiteracy, silence and imagination, is close to my heart: “An education that in any way neglects imagination is an education into psychopathy. It is an education that results in a sociopathic society of manipulations. We learn how to deal with others and become a society of dealers.”

Why have we as a nation become more and more illiterate? We blame television and the computer, but they are not causes. They are results of a prior condition that invited them in. They arrived to fill a gap. When imaginative ability declines, other ways to communicate appear. These ways work even though they too are dyslexic in structure: simultaneity of bits, odd juxtapositions, messages that do not move linearly from left to right. Yet television and personal computers communicate.

Evidently, reading does not depend solely on the ordering of words or the ordering of letters in the words. Indeed, poets use dyslexic structures deliberately. Reading depends on the psyche’s capacity to enter imagination. Reading is more like dreaming, which, too, goes on in silence. Our illiteracy reflects our educative process away from the silent grounds of reading: silent study halls and quiet periods, solitary homework, learning by heart, listening through a whole class without interruptions, writing an essay exam in longhand, drawing from nature instead of lab experiments. This long neglect of imaginational conditions that foster reading—Sputnik and the new math; social problems and social relatedness; mecentered motivation; the confusion of information with knowledge, of opinion with judgment, and trivia with sources; communications as messages by telephone calls and answering machines rather than as letter writing in silence; learning to speak up without first having something learned to say; multiple choice and scoring as a test of comprehension—has produced illiteracy.

The human person as a data bank does not need to read more than functionally. A data bank deciding yes or no on the basis of feedback (i.e., reinforcement) need not imagine beyond getting, storing, and spending. Just get the instructions right; never mind the content. Learn the how rather than the what with its qualities, values, and subtleties. Then the human agent becomes an incarnated credit card performing the religious rituals of consumerism. You need only be able to sign your name in the space marked Xy like an immigrant, like a slave, or a …

Or a psychopath. Descriptions of psychopathy, or sociopathic personalities, speak of their inability to imagine the other. Psychopaths are well able to size up situations and charm people. They perceive, assess, and relate, making use of any opportunity. Hence their successful manipulations of others. But the psychopath is far less able to imagine the other beyond a fantasy of usefulness, the other as a true interiority with his or her own needs, intentions, and feelings. An education that in any way neglects imagination is an education into psychopathy. It is an education that results in a sociopathic society of manipulations. We learn how to deal with others and become a society of dealers.

James Hillman
“Right to Remain Silent”
Journal of Humanistic Education and Development (1988)

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September 3, 2026

“In the biographies of men and nations, success often arrives in a mask of failure.” (2018)

This post is from 2018, which you may legitimately believe means it is out of date and irrelevant. I hope the point that Bill James made is timeless. The book mentioned, the The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, is from 2010, which some baseball fans complain makes it dated, since a generation of players and game changes have arrived since then. That is nonsense. What James did, as the tiny excerpt below reflects, is to elevate the place of statistics and data in baseball while never letting go of the humanity of the players and the game. A lesson we can still learn for all of the sports we embrace.

This isn’t about baseball, though the quote is from a baseball writer. Bill James is not just a superb writer; he is a thinker whose analysis of the game has changed baseball more than any other thinker has ever changed any game. You can look it up.

This is about optimism and hope. I was reading The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (a 998-page volume whose title alone should tell you just how thoughtful Bill James is). He describes Robin Yount, who as of the time of publication James considered the Number 4 shortstop in baseball history:

Robin Yount (1974–1993, 2856 G, 251 1406 .285)

Robin Yount was a major league regular when he was 18 years old. We always wondered how good he would be, how much he would improve. In 1978, after Yount had been in the major leagues four years, he held out in the spring, mulling over whether he wanted to be a baseball player, or whether he really wanted to be a professional golfer.

When that happened, I wrote him off as a player who would never become a star. If he can’t even figure out whether he wants to be a baseball player or a golfer, I reasoned, he’s never going to be an outstanding player.

Yount was unhappy about suggestions that the Brewers would move him to the outfield. According to Dan Okrent in Nine Innings, “Yount didn’t merely reject the suggestion; he brooded about it, resented it, and lost himself in self-doubt. Members of the front office… saw Yount’s reaction as immature sulking.”

But as soon as he returned to baseball, Yount became a better player than he had been before; his career got traction from the moment he returned. What I didn’t see at the time was that Yount was in the process of making a commitment to baseball. Before he had his golf holiday, he was there every day, he was playing baseball every day, but on a certain level he wasn’t participating; he was wondering whether this was really the sport that he should be playing. What looked like indecision or sulking was really the process of making a decision.

This is often true. What Watergate was about was not the corruption of government, as most people thought, but rather, the establishment of new and higher standards of ethical conduct. Almost all scandals, I think, result not from the invention of new evils, but from the imposition of new ethical standards. Same thing with Yount; he wasn’t backing away from baseball; he was just putting the bit in his teeth, accepting new responsibilities. In the biographies of men and nations, success often arrives in a mask of failure. (emphasis added)

–The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract

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August 17, 2026

An insurmountable difficulty is a sun

Une difficulté est une lumière. Une difficulté insurmontable est un soleil: ‘A difficulty is a light. An insurmountable difficulty is a sun.’
Paul Valéry

From the Introduction to The History of Philosophy by A.C. Grayling:

But the core of questions in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, the ‘philosophy of’ pursuits, and the rest, remain; they are perennial and perennially urgent questions, because efforts to answer them are part of the great adventure of humanity’s effort to understand itself and its place in the universe. Some of those questions seem unanswerable – though to act on the thought that they are so is to give up far too soon. Moreover, as Paul Valéry said, Une difficulté est une lumière. Une difficulté insurmontable est un soleil: ‘A difficulty is a light. An insurmountable difficulty is a sun.’ Wonderful saying! for it teaches us that the effort to solve even the seemingly unsolvable teaches us an enormous amount – as the history of philosophy attests.

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August 3, 2026

Heschel on Politicians

“I consider the heart of the problem of human existence is to fight against mendacity, against lying. I would like to use a word which may be too often used, but it’s still the most important word—and that is “honesty,” or “sincerity,” or “trust.””

“I am against the word “politician.” I have great respect for the word “statesman.” It’s very interesting, the word “statesman” is not used. “Politician” is used. “Statesman” is a great word….The task of a statesman is to be a leader, to be an educator, and not to cater to what people desire almost against their own interests. To be a leader.”

From an interview with Abraham Joshua Heschel at the University of Notre Dame in 1967, published in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, essays by Heschel.

Q: Your esteem for religious colleagues is greater than your esteem for politicians. I think you once said that the most depressing word in the English language is “politician.” Politicians are necessary, aren’t they? Why disparage them?

A: No, I’m not against politicians in their vocation. I’m against politicians in their tactics. Against the very meaning, the semantic meaning of the word “politician.”

Now let me elaborate. It may take me two minutes to explain it to you. I consider the heart of the problem of human existence is to fight against mendacity, against lying. I would like to use a word which may be too often used, but it’s still the most important word—and that is “honesty,” or “sincerity,” or “trust.”

The tragedy of our time is, we don’t trust each other. The Golden Rule today is not “Love thy neighbor as thyself” but “Suspect thy neighbor as thyself.” We suspect all politicians because we know in advance they don’t mean what they say and they don’t say what they mean.

Q: Is that justified? That suspicion?

A: Ask the people in the country. You’re asking me? I’m only one citizen. I have only one vote.

If you go to the country and ask them, “What do you think of politicians?,” they’ll say a politician is a synonym for a person who is not necessarily truthful. Right? Do you mind my elegant way of speaking?

We have a type of politician today—I suppose we’ve always had, and I don’t want to identify anyone—who tells us that he is doing what the peoples want. And, in fact, that may be so. Of course, that doesn’t reach to the question of leadership. Should our leaders give us what we want, or is there some other role?

I think there is another role. By the way, I am against the word “politician.” I have great respect for the word “statesman.” It’s very interesting, the word “statesman” is not used. “Politician” is used. “Statesman” is a great word.

Now, about doing what the people want—I’ll tell you what the people want. One of the major inclinations in every human being is a desire to be deceived. Self-deception is a major disease.

Q: To be told what one wants to hear?

A: Yes. You want to be deceived.

The task of a statesman is to be a leader, to be an educator, and not to cater to what people desire almost against their own interests. To be a leader.

The great question of today is mendacity. We live in a world full of lies. And the tragedy that our young people—or maybe it’s good—the young people have discovered how many lies are uttered daily and every moment. They can’t stand it. If there’s anything they despise, it’s someone who is phony, false rhetoric. We call it “credibility gap”—what we mean really is lying.

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July 24, 2026

To understand America, read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Note: A version of this post was first published in 2017. I’ve made a few revisions to mentions of particular years. Otherwise no changes were needed. Which says so much.

We had the best education. We went to school every day. I only took the regular course. Reeling and Writhing to begin with. Then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.
–Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland now. Again if it’s been a while, and definitely now if for the first time.

Lewis Carroll (born Charles Dodgson, 1832-1898) was famously creative as a mathematician and logician. He wove puzzles and tortured logic all through his book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Puzzles and tortured logic are a major component of America in 2026, as they were over the past ten years.

The leadership and the citizens of Wonderland are variously tyrannical, illogical, stupid, or just plain bizarre. Alice literally does not fit in. While she is only a child, she has more sense than everyone she meets combined.

If I had a news network like CNN, I’d interrupt the futile attempts to understand and explain what’s going on by having different news anchors read aloud one chapter from Alice in Wonderland every day. It would actually be more constructive—and more fun—than just listening to their trying to making sense of the nonsensical.

If Trump’s tweets were taken from Alice in Wonderland, would we know the difference? Would he?

Some Trump/Alice tweets:

We must have a trial. Really this morning I have nothing to do. With no jury or judge I’ll be Judge. I’ll be jury. I’ll try the whole cause and condemn you to death.

We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. A dog growls when it’s angry and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.

Be what you would seem to be. Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

You have no right to think. Just about as much right as pigs have to fly. I give you fair warning either you or your head must be off. Take your choice!

We had the best education. We went to school every day. I only took the regular course. Reeling and Writhing to begin with. Then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

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June 20, 2026

Between the rational and irrational and between the religious and the irreligious

Between the rational and the irrational is the place that so many traditions point us to, though not all who follow want to go. It is not in the middle, in the sense of being halfway in between, or to applying each one half the time. It is the entire space, with the wholly rational and irrational merely on the outside borders, a thin outline.

This does not sit well with many, who want to have it one way or another. Extreme rationalists frequently work hard to make ordered sense from evidence, rejecting the rest, and particularly vexed by those apparently too lazy or heedless to see how essential the rational way is. Extreme irrationalists may be driven by visions that may be delusions, or by personal preferences, and may indeed avoid the rational because it is hard work or because it may not suit their needs.

This plays out on a bigger social scale. With increasing frequency, the irreligious base their perspective on a loosely rationalist view, not only because there is no evidence of and for the religious, but because the religious seem to discard or ignore the rational in a disordered and possibly self serving way.

No one is right or wrong here, in the sense of winning an ultimately unwinnable argument. Instead consider the field where all things grow, neither rational nor irrational. The place, if we listen to the best of the traditions, where we are born and where we die.

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November 20, 2025

To Understand America 2025, Read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

We had the best education. We went to school every day. I only took the regular course. Reeling and Writhing to begin with. Then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland now. Again if it’s been a while, and definitely now if for the first time.

Lewis Carroll (born Charles Dodgson, 1832-1898) was famously creative as a mathematician and logician. He wove puzzles and tortured logic all through his book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Puzzles and tortured logic are a major component of America in 2025.

The leadership and the citizens of Wonderland are variously tyrannical, illogical, stupid, or just plain bizarre. Alice literally does not fit in. While she is only a child, she has more sense than everyone she meets combined.

If I had a news network I’d suspend the futile attempts to explain what’s going on and would instead read aloud one chapter from Alice in Wonderland every day. It would be more constructive and more fun than listening to their trying to make sense of the nonsensical.

Trump’s posts and speeches seem to be taken straight from Alice in Wonderland:

For example:

We must have a trial. Really this morning I have nothing to do. With no jury or judge I’ll be Judge. I’ll be jury. I’ll try the whole cause and condemn you to death.

We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. A dog growls when it’s angry and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.

Be what you would seem to be. Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

You have no right to think. Just about as much right as pigs have to fly. I give you fair warning either you or your head must be off. Take your choice!

We had the best education. We went to school every day. I only took the regular course. Reeling and Writhing to begin with. Then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

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January 22, 2024

Road House: “Pain don’t hurt”

Road House is one of my favorite movies. Ever.

The category “guilty pleasure” is kind of silly. It’s supposed to mean movies that “real” film people disrespect, that you love, and therefore that you feel guilty about loving. There’s no reason to feel guilty about movies you love. If that was a thing, many of our relationships would qualify as guilty pleasures, which mostly they are not.

By critical standards, Road House is not on any best of lists. But besides its entertainment value, it also contains a helpful dose of philosophy.

Dalton—one name only—is a world class cooler. One step above bouncers, who work for him, he maintains peace in rowdy clubs. Just the mention of his name elicits gasps from the staff at the Double Deuce, an out-of-control club in Missouri that Dalton is hired to straighten out.

Too many plot points here will spoil the movie for you (you are going to watch it, aren’t you?). Just know that Dalton has a cute meeting with a beautiful doctor in an emergency room, after he has been knifed.

DOC
How’d this happen?

DALTON
Natural causes.

DOC
(peers at cut)
Looks like a knife wound.

DALTON
Like I said.

(reaches down, hands the doctor a file from his case. The doctor scans the pages of extensive medical records.)

DOC
You’re a bouncer?

DALTON
Uh-huh.

DOC
Well, Mr. Dalton, you may add eighteen stitches to your dossier of thirty-one broken bones, two bullet wounds, eight puncture wounds and four stainless steel screws. That’s an estimate of course.
(prepares to suture)
I’ll give you a local.

DALTON
No thanks.

DOC
Do you enjoy pain?

DALTON
Pain don’t hurt.

DOC
(peers at folder)
Says you’ve got a degree from New York University.

DALTON
That’s right.

DOC
What in?

DALTON
Philosophy. Psychology.

DOC
Yeah?

DALTON
Uh-huh.

(doctor continues stitching)

DOC
What’d you study?

DALTON
Little of everything. Man’s search for faith. That sort of shit.

Even if you love the movie, you have to chuckle at Patrick Swayze’s ridiculous answer about his studies: “Little of everything. Man’s search for faith. That sort of shit.”

But the real key is his refusing a local anesthetic: “Pain don’t hurt.”

Besides knowing how to clean up a club, Dalton’s experiences and studies have made him wise.

According to some philosophies, in one sense, pain don’t hurt. That doesn’t mean there isn’t severe and excruciating pain, far beyond getting stitches in an emergency room. Pain you can’t pretend isn’t there or that you can think away. I don’t want to give Dalton (who has studied “that sort of shit”) or the scriptwriters too much credit, but they are on to something that various traditions teach. Besides the blessings of unabused painkillers, some degrees of over-attachment to pain or pleasure can keep us off balance. And while I don’t like disagreeing with Dalton, who was trying to impress a gorgeous doctor, it’s not that pain don’t hurt, but that pain can hurt differently.

“Pain can hurt differently” isn’t much of a movie line. Especially in one of the greats.

© 2024 by Bob Schwartz

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January 2, 2024

2024 is the Year of __? The absurd? Philosophers? Buddhism and Taoism?

A year ago, I declared 2023 the Year of Poetry. All the arts are valuable, but you can’t go wrong with poetry, whether reading it or writing it.

A new year, a new declaration. Nothing official has been decided, but I thought some of the candidates deserved mention.

Year of Buddhism and Taoism. For convenient classification, Buddhism and Taoism are often categorized as religions, though they don’t look like the others. We might better call them traditions. Anyway, as we approach a year that is certain to include much that goes sideways or turns upside down, it will be helpful to learn how to go with it. These are excellent for that. Other religious traditions are about keeping us steady and grounded by anchoring us in truths. B&T at their best acknowledge the ground but remind us that there is more than the ground, that whatever is propounded can be followed by “…and yet.”

Year of Philosophers. Ideally, philosophers don’t tell us what to see or think—though there’s plenty of that. They tell us how to see and think, for ourselves. That’s why I have been pleading with philosophers to take a more visible and audible place in our popular public conversations. Way too many talking heads offering conclusions and certainties in the face of complex or insoluble situations. Which tends to confirm or antagonize the conclusions and certainties of listeners and viewers. Instead, we need more people who teach us how to gather, distill and process knowledge and how to live with a little—or a lot—of uncertainty.

Year of the Absurd. This is currently at the top of my list. At some other point, I’ll deep dive into this topic. For now, know that when things don’t seem to make sense, it may be because they don’t make sense, and our futile job is not to make sense of them, though we feel compelled to try. Our real job is to learn how to live with it, not be discouraged or dispirited by it, crushed or drowned by it. If you think that 2024 won’t constantly offer us absurdities, you are mistaken. These may make you laugh or cry, or both, which is understandable and fine. It’s just absurd.

© 2024 by Bob Schwartz

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October 21, 2023

Israel/Gaza War: Philosophers Wanted

“This is why people hate moral philosophy professors.”
The Good Place TV series

The Good Place TV series, created by Michael Schur, is probably the only show to even mention moral philosophy professors, let alone feature one as a main character. Or to be expressly about education in moral philosophy.

The show suggests that maybe the antipathy toward moral philosophy professors is because they don’t offer decisive answers—on the one hand, on the other hand, on the third hand.

I suggest a different perspective. People don’t actually hate moral philosophy professors because they don’t actually know any. Also, the moral questions philosophers raise can be troublesome, inconvenient and uncomfortable. Difficult situations are hard enough as practical matters without adding the burden of philosophical investigation.

I have long thought that philosophers should aggressively take a forward position in our popular public conversations. News channels should regularly feature them on their constant panels of experts. Why? Because so many news issues contain an essential moral element—an element that is glossed over or completely ignored.

The latest issue that begs—screams—for that treatment is the current Israel/Gaza war. From the combatants to the those suffering to those cheering or booing from the sidelines, every choice is saturated with undiscussed moral questions. Raising those questions doesn’t mean actions or minds will be changed. It means that those choices will be beneficially couched in a bigger context.

So, philosophers, please answer the call. Push your way into the public conversation, not just in the classroom, not just in your writing, not just in social media posts, but on the biggest platforms you can find. You may not have a network TV show like Michael Schur, but you can find your stage.

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