Philosophy
Today is Veteran's Day, what used to be Armistice Day commemorating the end of The Great War which was reduced to World War I once another great war came along. Because of the Holocaust and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, we tend to forget about World War I but it was a horror of epic proportions. Trench warfare in which one side would charge only to get mowed down, then the other side would charge only to get mowed down. Lives lost by the thousands and no change. Just death for the sake of death. The use of chemical weapons causing more mass death in absolutely horrible ways.
The unfathomable reality of what they had done to themselves undermined European culture which before the war considered itself the ultimate end of cultural evolution. They were what history had always intended, the full complete actualization of humanity. And then they did this. What did it mean? What was it to be human after this? These questions were very much real to them and you see radical turns in almost every human endeavor that follows from the sciences to the arts to the human sciences. The war had triggered the cultural conscience.
We saw something similar with the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the bombing that killed the children in Omaugh in Northern Ireland, a point at which the horrible simply reaches a place where the culture demands an intellectual time-out.
Is American culture capable of this anymore? Do we even have a culture conscience anymore? We permitted torture and there was no outrage. The CIA destroyed evidence of torture and no one is even going to be charged. Is there anything anymore that will make us step back and ask what it means to be human if we allow this? On a day we set aside to think about the human cost of warfare, I worry that the answer is no.
- All My Children: Have We Gone From Greece To Rome?
I've never been one for soap operas, but it is interesting that after 40 years the show All My Children is coming to an end. At first glance, you might be tempted to say that because of economic hardship or because we've evolved as a culture,...
- Torture, Health Care, And The Post-9/11 Corruption Of The Cultural Soul
By now, many people have seen the audience members at the tea party sponsored Republican presidential candidates' debate cheering the hypothetical unnecessary death of a sick American without health insurance.Coming on the heels of the 9/11 remembrance,...
- Choice Architects, Autonomy, And Responsibility
One of my favorite writers is Cass Sunstein. A brilliant man and a great writer, he's been on a roll the last few years with questions I've been thinking about as well: how do we mesh facts from social psychology -- facts that show how our choices...
- Hiroshima, Haditha, And Hope: The Unintended Costs Of Fear
This weekend marked the 61st anniversary of the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the 60th anniversary of John Hersey's article "Hiroshima" which gives a stunningly human face to the act. If you have never read this masterwork, please do. No...
- The Kaiser Says, "let's Roll": The Return Of Dada?
An interesting discussion over at Alicublog about the conservative commentator Elizabeth Fisher taking on the 1920's European art movement Dadaism at NRO. I will agree with Roy that making Dada a part of the right's current culture war is a lot...
Philosophy
War and the Cultural Conscience
Today is Veteran's Day, what used to be Armistice Day commemorating the end of The Great War which was reduced to World War I once another great war came along. Because of the Holocaust and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, we tend to forget about World War I but it was a horror of epic proportions. Trench warfare in which one side would charge only to get mowed down, then the other side would charge only to get mowed down. Lives lost by the thousands and no change. Just death for the sake of death. The use of chemical weapons causing more mass death in absolutely horrible ways.
The unfathomable reality of what they had done to themselves undermined European culture which before the war considered itself the ultimate end of cultural evolution. They were what history had always intended, the full complete actualization of humanity. And then they did this. What did it mean? What was it to be human after this? These questions were very much real to them and you see radical turns in almost every human endeavor that follows from the sciences to the arts to the human sciences. The war had triggered the cultural conscience.
We saw something similar with the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the bombing that killed the children in Omaugh in Northern Ireland, a point at which the horrible simply reaches a place where the culture demands an intellectual time-out.
Is American culture capable of this anymore? Do we even have a culture conscience anymore? We permitted torture and there was no outrage. The CIA destroyed evidence of torture and no one is even going to be charged. Is there anything anymore that will make us step back and ask what it means to be human if we allow this? On a day we set aside to think about the human cost of warfare, I worry that the answer is no.
- All My Children: Have We Gone From Greece To Rome?
I've never been one for soap operas, but it is interesting that after 40 years the show All My Children is coming to an end. At first glance, you might be tempted to say that because of economic hardship or because we've evolved as a culture,...
- Torture, Health Care, And The Post-9/11 Corruption Of The Cultural Soul
By now, many people have seen the audience members at the tea party sponsored Republican presidential candidates' debate cheering the hypothetical unnecessary death of a sick American without health insurance.Coming on the heels of the 9/11 remembrance,...
- Choice Architects, Autonomy, And Responsibility
One of my favorite writers is Cass Sunstein. A brilliant man and a great writer, he's been on a roll the last few years with questions I've been thinking about as well: how do we mesh facts from social psychology -- facts that show how our choices...
- Hiroshima, Haditha, And Hope: The Unintended Costs Of Fear
This weekend marked the 61st anniversary of the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the 60th anniversary of John Hersey's article "Hiroshima" which gives a stunningly human face to the act. If you have never read this masterwork, please do. No...
- The Kaiser Says, "let's Roll": The Return Of Dada?
An interesting discussion over at Alicublog about the conservative commentator Elizabeth Fisher taking on the 1920's European art movement Dadaism at NRO. I will agree with Roy that making Dada a part of the right's current culture war is a lot...