"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me." - Bae de Beauvoir

Humanitarians,

Happy Ides of March, my friends!

While today in class we did not stab you to death, a la Caesar, we may have destroyed your humanity....juuuuuust a bit, with the ideas of existentialism. Remember, existentialism is the idea that emphsizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses the freedom of choice (here as a negative instead of a positive) and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts. You definitely need to be aware of the major proto-existentialists, Friedrich Nietzsche and Soren Kierkegaard, as well as the major existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre, and bae, Simone de Beauvoir. As you struggle to give your life meaning while questioning all of your religious beliefs, make sure you see how this could have (and definitely did) affect things like literature (CAMUS!), art, and theatre. 

Hannah Arendt is super amazing and wrote a really important book called The Banality of Evil, that I recommend

Tomorrow, you have some WHAP reading due, as we return to the historical part of this period, the Cold War. Remember, though, as we leave philosophy for a bit, nothing happens in a vaccum and the issues that Sartre and de Beauvoir are wrestling with are going to be some of the same ones that Robert MacNamara and Khrushchev, etc wrestle with. They just do it with bombs.

This day in histooooorrrryyyyy!!!!!!!!

• 1493: Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first visit to the Western Hemisphere.
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• 1937: The first hospital blookd bank in the United States was established, in Chicago, at Cook County Hospital.
• 1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson (shout-out, Texas president!) asked Congress for legislation guaranteeing every American the right to vote. I <3 Johnson, and have heard great things about a local play about him, All the Way, if you are looking for a humanities experience!

• 2003: Hu Jintao was chosen to replace Jiang Zemin as the president of China. 
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And today's social media to follow is again on Instagram (pictures are just better than words). It's i'm not a third wheel. A man recognizes he is the perpetual third wheel to his couple friends and hilarity ensues. see if you can find him in every photo!

Happy Tuesday, y'all. Try to find the lie that gives your meaningless life meaning!

- cbg