- “Carlin Romano’s Wrongheaded Heidegger Assessment,” Stephen Metcalf (h/t Ario) – Everyone should read this; no, I’m not kidding. fta: Heidegger was born on the border of the Black Forest near the turn of the 20th century, and almost everything about his lived reality was pre-capitalist. He did not live in a city; he was surrounded by woodlands and peasants and horse power in its original sense. He felt a deep affinity for nature and an instinctive revulsion toward cities. The university he taught at was a late-medieval institution, founded by the Hapsburgs. Social intercourse was uninteresting to him, but a dialogue across the millennia, with Aristotle and Epictetus, with Kant and Nietzsche, was his life’s vocation. Heidegger believed only the intercession into history of something more powerful than technology could bring modernity to heel. He made a tragic and finally disgusting error in thinking Hitler was that intercession.
- “The Limits of Presidential Power,” Megan McArdle – Increasingly, I feel like Obama and his team are trying to run his office like a community organizing outfit. But this is the presidency, not a political campaign. You don’t put your message out through every available channel, you don’t go to war on news operations, and you don’t threaten groups that say things you don’t like. You are now running the whole country, not trying to win a race.
- Color Photography from Russia in the Early 1900′s (h/t Constance) – the quality is stunning; you must look at these.
- Jennifer’s brief review of “Where the Wild Things Are” comes without spoilers, and with some lovely photos of Tyler Park. Review with spoilers that I think is awesome reading (no I haven’t seen the movie).
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About Ashok
I am a graduate student in political science at the University of Dallas who thinks the media is dumb for the most part, yet am immersed myself. I am looking to break my addiction, and this blog is part of the solution: Why not try to see what the past can tell us about the present, as opposed to seeing what the present has to say about the present only?
Currently residing in Cherry Hill, NJ. Facebook. Contact me.
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OK, I’m sold. What should I read here?
- Analysis of The Gettysburg Address: Is Democracy Feasible?
- Analysis of Lincoln's "Second Inaugural:" Where do American virtues lie?
- Commentary on the Book of Jonah
- On "Batman Begins"
- From Love to God: On Hopkins' "As Kingfishers Catch Fire"
- On Emily Dickinson's "These are the days when birds come back..."
- The Coming Age: Macbeth and the Birth of the Modern World
- On Polemarchus: Commentary on the Republic of Plato, 331d-336a
- A Reading of Plato's "Crito"
- Towards a Nietzschean Understanding of Politics: Notes on "The Case of Wagner"
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