Merold Westphal Quotes

#1. For the amoral herd that fears boredom above all else, everything becomes entertainment. Sex and sport, politics and the arts are transformed into entertainment ... Nothing is immune from the demand that boredom be relieved (but without personal involvement, for mass society is a spectator society).

Merold Westphal

#2. To assume that one's existential task is completed when the individual is brought into right relation with society, that is, when the individual has been socialized, is to absolutize society and confuse society with God.

Merold Westphal

#3. To a society that inarticulately and thoughtlessly takes itself to be divine, Hegel says, Yes, we are indeed divine, and philosophy can show how this is both possible and necessary.

Merold Westphal

#4. It is the shared bad faith by which individuals help each other sustain the illusion that they can shirk their spiritual destiny by joining the public.

Merold Westphal