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Technological consciousness takes itself dead seriously; it has no sense of humor. The fool can play no role in it, for there is no other realm that is can see beyond itself to which the fool can point. Consciousness in the throes of desire cannot tolerate laughter any more than criticism of laughter can be tolerated in a moment of sexual lust.

— Donald Phillip Verene Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997)

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More quotes by Donald Phillip Verene

The Book of Job is advice on how to live in terms of the absolute power of nature. Leviathan is advice on how to live in terms of the absolute power of the state.

Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997)

The media is the thought-form of the technological society, and it finds nothing it does to be laughable, a sure sign that it is not human.

Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997)

Contemporary philosophy illustrates Hegel’s dictum that philosophy is its own time apprehended in thought, for in our age philosophy yields to the objectifying technical impulse and loses its ancient task of pursuing the Socratic ideal of the wisdom of the examined life.

Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997)

No new choices are introduced by raising the specter of disaster. These become opportunities for swearing new allegiance to technology. The solution is to discover new technologies that will correct and modify the harm either potentially or already caused by present technologies.

Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997)

The self as master is born in the realization that nature can be commanded. Real mastery requires a means. The self develops technique—the idea of work put into the hands of another agency held in bondage to the self.

Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Donald Phillip Verene (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.