“Perhaps due to the rise of cultural anthropology or, more recently, to a variety of postmodern schools of social construction, it is now often accepted that the lives of Socrates, Euripides, and Pericles were not similar to our own, but so far different as to be almost unfathomable. Shelley’s truism that “We are all Greeks” has now become, as we say, inoperative.”
Category: ideas
America – Culture To the World?
Samuel Huntington’s now infamous new book argues that America is losing its sense of itself. This is an idea full of flaws, as Huntington articulates it. “Why isn’t internationalism, as a number of writers have recently argued, a powerful resource for Americans? The United States doesn’t have an exclusive interest in opposing and containing the forces of intolerance, superstition, and fanaticism; the whole world has an interest in opposing and containing those things. On September 12, 2001, the world was with us. Because of our government’s mad conviction that it was our way of life that was under attack, not the way of life of civilized human beings everywhere, and that only we knew what was best to do about it, we squandered our chance to be with the world. The observation is now so obvious as to be banal. That does not make it less painful.”
How Globalization Is Killing Pop Music
“Put bluntly, Anglo-American popular music is among globalisation’s most useful props. Never mind the nitpicking fixations with interview rhetoric and stylistic nuance that concern its hardcore enthusiasts – away from its home turf, mainstream music, whether it’s metal, rap, teen-pop or indie-rock, cannot help but stand for a depressingly conservative set of values: conspicuous consumption, the primacy of the English language, the implicit acknowledgement that America is probably best. Even the most well-intentioned artist can’t escape.”
Can Creative Architecture Lead To More Creative Science?
“To the delight of many architects and scientists, the lab-in-a-box is losing favor. In recent years, more science buildings have begun to feature flexible work spaces, large common areas, fancy atriums, irregular shapes, and other relative extravagances once unseen in the workaday laboratory. These changes are not just ornamental. Increasingly, they come from the drawing boards of architects who have been pondering how scientists think and work.”
Ideas: Let Freedom Ring (Sort Of) (Maybe)
The cause of freedom gets thrown about rhetorically quite a bit these days as Anmericans debate the whys and wherefores of war and the balancing of freedoms and safety. These arguments are finding parallels in the arena of culture in the form of debate about intellectual property and copyright. As a “free” society, how much freedom do we want to allow to the products of creativity?
Images Of War, And Of A National Disgrace
The photos that emerged from Iraq last week – showing American soldiers exulting next to naked Iraqi prisoners forced to adopt humiliating poses – are a disturbing piece of visual evidence that America is its own worst enemy, says Philip Kennicott, and only the stark reality of a photograph was able to bring that fact home to us. “These photos, we insist, are not us. But these photos are us. Yes, they are the acts of individuals… [but] great national crimes begin with the acts of misguided individuals… Every errant smart bomb, every dead civilian, every sodomized prisoner, is ours.”
I’ll Take Three Memories To Go…
The human mind is a mysterious thing. Or is it? “Memory-improving and memory-deleting medicines may be available within five to 10 years. More than 40 drugs aimed at improving memory are currently going through clinical trials with the US Food and Drug Administration.” Will there come a day when what we remember is the product of our own science?
US Loses Ground In Brain Power
The United States is losing its dominance in basic research. “Even analysts worried by the trend concede that an expansion of the world’s brain trust, with new approaches, could invigorate the fight against disease, develop new sources of energy and wrestle with knotty environmental problems. But profits from the breakthroughs are likely to stay overseas, and this country will face competition for things like hiring scientific talent and getting space to showcase its work in top journals.”
Where All The Students Are Above Average
What is with the psychology of grade inflation where every student must be above average? “Several years ago, Harvard awarded ”honors” to 90 percent of its graduates. For its part, Princeton has disclosed that A’s have been given 47 percent of the time in recent years, up from 31 percent in the mid-1970’s. Perhaps grade inflation is most severe at the most elite colleges, where everyone is so far above average that the rules of the Caucus Race in ”Alice in Wonderland” apply: everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”
How Do We Sort Out Violence For Entertainment And Violence For Horror?
“Rarely has the dissonance between the news and popular entertainment been so striking. One can react only with horror as Iraq descends into a chaotic bloodbath, Israel continues to be engulfed in a sickening cycle of revenge upon revenge and terrorism spreads to other countries. Some ABC-TV stations refused to carry Ted Koppel reading the names of killed American soldiers on Friday’s “Nightline.” Yet week after week we’re offered supposedly cathartic stories of devastated families and bloodthirsty vengeance to consume.”