Tag: Virtue
We’re excited that you’ve joined the conversation! At HMU, we want to continue the great authors’ conversations in a contemporary context, and this blog will help us do that. We look back to Aristotle and the early philosophers who used reason and discourse to gain wisdom and now we endeavor to do the same every day.
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July 31, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
According to Emily Wilson, a Greek hero is extraordinary because of their connection to the divine. The closer one is to the gods, the more heroic the human. So, heroes don’t need to do good deeds or have impressive moral standards. Instead, Greek heroes are uncannily victorious, beyond superior on the battlefield. One might say they have a lot of plot armor.
March 13, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
If you read the post from last week, you’ll remember that Stubb orders a sermon from the ship’s cook. Poor Fleece unwillingly obliges. But the whole scene smacks of injustice and indecency. Fleece seems to be the most blameless of all the characters — he’s just an aged and broken body being ordered around. And yet,
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October 10, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s review.
While I’ve always loved Jane Austen’s characters, it was only after becoming an adult that I understood Austen’s complex social commentaries. I’ve read most of her works multiple times. For some reason, however, I never picked up Persuasion. So, in honor of Austen’s 250th birthday this year, I read that final novel. As usual, I identify with the strong female voice.
August 1, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Charity is not one of Adler’s great ideas, despite the fact that St. Paul claims: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (King James Version, 1Cor. 13:13). Charity is not one of Adler’s great ideas, despite the fact that many of the great authors construct entire sections of ethics based on charity itself.
March 29, 2024
Thanks to Jennifer-NeToi Claiborne, a 2024 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
When the air is warm, the smell of rain and honeysuckles fill the breeze, I know that it is summer and it is time to return to Siddhartha. I first read this book in the summer of 2000, when I was in the midst of a great change in my life. It was the summer prior to entering my freshman year of college.
January 12, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
It is impossible to continue our conversation of charity, without a brief exploration of Esther’s Narrative. Chapter 13 of Bleak House is titled “Esther’s Narrative” and is the first of eleven chapters dedicated to her story. Though it purports to be about Esther, the chapter actually begins with a discussion of Richard’s vocation. Esther, in her usual humble manner,
December 29, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Charity takes center stage this time of year. In Bleak House also, charity becomes a sort of character. Even limited to the first six chapters, Dickens explores a variety of charities. The protagonist, Esther Summerson, is introduced as an orphan in the care of her godmother who is a deeply religious woman. Esther’s godmother sees nothing but sin in the young girl and therefore treats her austerely.
November 3, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The October Quarterly Discussion merged two chapters from The Prince by Machiavelli with a chapter from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Of prime interest was the focus on the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Machiavelli presents him as a champion of the princely cause since he successfully tricked and killed his opponents,
Thanks to Eden Tesfaslassie, a 2022 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
May 20, 2022
The main themes the audience sees explored in Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashōmon are death, truth, and losing faith in humanity. The story conveys this message with the frame of a murder trial, but even by the end of the film, the audience still does not definitively know what happened or who committed the crime.
September 10, 2021
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know/ Silence like a cancer grows/ Hear my words that I might teach you/ Take my arms that I might reach you”/ But my words, like silent raindrops fell/ And echoed/ In the wells of silence/ And the people bowed and prayed/ To the neon god they made/ And the sign flashed out its warning/ In the words that it was forming/ And the sign said,
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