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A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
My Stuff
https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0
Coming Soon:
The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."
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About Me
- Robert Paul Wolff
- As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.
3 comments:
I don't know if it's fifth grade. The last time I remember people trying to break my hand by shaking it was in the university: the football players used to do that. Since then, I've lived in three countries and no one that I recall ever tried that again and not because I'm so big that I scare people, quite the contrary. So when I read that the President of the United States, a man of my age, 71, was trying to exhibit his "virility" by shaking hands so hard that they hurt, I saw it as pathetic and sub-childish, since most children don't even do that, only the football players. I'm glad to see that Macron gave him a bit of his own medicine. Maybe if Macron works out with weights for the next few months, the next time he meets Trump he can send the bastard to Intensive Care.
I looked at the video of Macron and Trump shaking hands, and I think interpreting this is reading tea leaves, maybe somebody has an overactive imagination. to me they are just going through the motions of posing for a picture. Also, the notion that Macron snubbed Trump by shaking other peoples' hands first -- this is looking to me like journalists fishing around, grasping at straws, it's fake news.
Yet the more abstract thought of the handshake is interesting -- I find myself musing over whether actually, the handshake not an entirely bogus way for people to judge you. At least, to judge certain personality characteristics. Think of the handshake as maybe laying laying the foundation for how other perceive and feel about you – and we about them. You are seeing, sensing, observing, and feeling another person. Nothing to scoff at. every culture has greeting rituals, and what kind of opportunities are these? Maybe how that handshake is performed is crucial. I say maybe, and I add maybe not, for Trump and Macron. The notion that I've seen bandied about, that Trump thinks his hand has to be the one on top when shaking hands or such, may be true of Trump, but is nevertheless not true of the handshake. Twisting the other person’s hand so that yours is superior or playing hand jujitsu to let the other person know you are in charge strikes me as rubbish, though it may be that Trump wouldn't agree. There are actually dynamics to explore, but candidly I look at Macron and my first impression is 'ooof, this guy is probably not forty years old and also how tall is he? Like 5'9''?'
I sounded the 'fake news' alarm, but I'll give a related case -- I read in the New York Times that 'Dusko Markovic, the prime minister of Montenegro 'was the visibly stunned victim of the shove heard round the world'. Yet, I'd say that Markovic did not seem to take any offense. He wound up providing a statement: “It’s only natural for the president of the United States to be in the front row”.
Body language is maybe an interesting matter, and certainly we are considering 'status issues', very interesting matter..
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