The Pope and the CEO > Thought Leaders
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Excerpt from Terry Eagleton’s book Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
Eagleton’s book has many sections that I’d love to post here, but this is a particularly good point that he makes: “Postmodernism is allergic to the idea of certainty, and makes a great deal of theoretical fuss over this rather modest everyday notion. As such, it is in some ways the flip side of fundamentalism… Some postmodern thought suspects that all certainty is authoritarian. It is nervous of people who sound passionately committed to what they say. In this, it represents among other things, an excessive reaction to fascism and Stalin-ism. The totalitarian politics of the twentieth century did not only launch an assault on truth in their own time; they also helped to undermine the idea of truth for future generations. The line between holding certain noxious kinds of belief, and holding strong beliefs at all, then becomes dangerously unclear. Conviction itself is condemned as dogmatic.” It’s striking to see how much our deeply held ideas about life have been shaped by historical events over half a century ago. As Bergson said, we can feel “the presence of the past” in every moment. But the best part of all of this is the fact that these anti-progress, anti-evolutionary, anti-conviction… Read more
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The 99 Percent
“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” — Thomas Edison Behance’s think-tank 99% tries to help people with ideas to make things happen. Hence their use of Edison’s motto mentioned above. Any entrepreneur can empathize with this: the idea is the easy part, in its implementation is where success or failure lurk around every corner. Their site has a wide selection of how-to and inspiring articles on the topic, and of course offers Behance’s products and services that target creative professionals. It’s all done in a very pleasant and useful manner. They also feature a book called “Making Ideas Happen,” by Behance Founder/CEO Scott Belsky, which (based on what I’ve read on the site and the press reviews) I will add to my reading list. Their team-blog is also a great source for inspiration and ideas.