West Thought: Reprise

Finally the winter break and a chance to flee West Civ. But there is no place to hide from the smatterings of western thought that are always with us. The first film I saw was "the History Boys" This is the film version of a successful play that first opened in London and is now being acclaimed on Broadway. It is about a group of High Schools Students(our term-they call the A level students) preparing for exams to get them into Oxford. They bring in a slick tutor whose only concern is that they pass.His job is to turn them into upbeat versions of Cole's notes,who are able to pour out colourful versions of what the examiners want. His antithesis is an old teacher who loves poetry and thinks that the purpose of West Thought is to is to enhance and to civilize. For him Knowledge is eros- too much eros as it turns out.
Then just as I was settling in with last week's issue of "The Economist" to denounce those who use their god given free will to perpetrate mayhem and chaos I stumbled into this article which pronounces the impending victory of determinism.
Attempting comic relief I rented "The Devil Wears Prada" which,as it turns out, is the story of a female Machiavellian who runs a fashion magazine where there is little room for waverers and the faint of heart. I think Machiavelli would have found her grotesque.As is often the case with Hollywood films about brutal business or military leaderrs this one ends in an orgy of sentimentality designed to show the "just like the rest of us" qualities of the hero(ine ) of the film
To end the year on an upbeat note, one of the Globe's more interesting reporters,Doug Saunders gives 2006 a much neededboost

Individualism

Here is a point we may have forgotten.Freedom is not an innate idea,embedded in our hearts at birth.It is a western construct.But neither is it foreign to us as human beings. Since the end of worl war 2 most cultures have come to pay homage to freedom but, the author claims,freedom cannot be imposed upon people's who have no experience of freedom or no language of freedom,or who equate freedom and anarchy. We have seen that in the age of science and corporate power it is a concept fraught with difficulties -Remember Kant on determinism and Kafka on the individual in corporate cultures.

Reading

Here is a wise quote from a blog by the critic Terry Teachout,who took it from a blog called "The Reading Experience" that was quoting Marly Youmansi

. . .it is in rereading that a story or poem reveals itself—and tells us the extent of its merit. Most reviewers know only the first cursory passage through a work when they pen a review; a reader can know more. Though life is short and art long, we ought to reread often, because it is there that we “dive,” as Melville would say.

Individualism ,free press

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/weekinreview/03myers.html?ref=weekinreview

Here is an argument against press control in Russia. Conspiracy theories abound in countries where no one believes what is in the press. Does freedom of the press avoid this problem?