The influence of being in New York, made me realize a lot of the ethical and political ideas I want to push or promote are best articulated within an anarchist program.

For me, philosophy is an activity of thought that is common to human beings. Human beings at their best.

I guess what happens to a lot of people as they get older is that they get more conservative, but with me, the opposite is the case.

I think that when people are at their best, when they are thinking, reflecting, cogitating, then they are doing philosophy. So I don't see philosophy as an academic enterprise.

Philosophy isn't programmed into us, and a lot of the forces of our culture steadfastly work against it. Philosophy, for me, is a way of resisting the nihilism of the present by making, creating, affirming. By going on.

Being anthropologically respectful of all faiths means being committed to none, and being left to drift without an anchor for one's most deeply held beliefs. To have such an anchor means being committed to a specific community. The only way Obama can overcome his sense of detachment and resolve his mother's dilemma is through a commitment to Christianity.

We might even define the human as a dynamic process produced by a series of identifications and misidentifications with animality.