Reviews and News:
In 1936, Eliot wrote John Hayward: “I have no family, no career, and nothing particular to look forward to in this world. I doubt the permanent value of everything I have written. I never lay with a woman I liked, loved, or even felt any strong physical attraction to. I no longer even regret this lack of experience. I no longer even feel acutely the desire for progeny which was very acute once.” What eventually rescued Eliot from such despair? The Anglican Church and Valerie.
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The Basque town of Guernica was leveled by German bombers on April 26, 1937 as a birthday gift to Hitler. The bombing became the subject of Picasso’s most famous mural, but the work is more personal than political.
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The search for black holes sparked rivalries that caused scientists to cut off contact with each other and even brick their office doors. John Weber “became so isolated that when he slipped on ice in front of the gravity research building in Maryland, two days passed before he was found. He never recovered: eight months later, he was dead.”
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The original cast of Hamilton is causing waves in the theatre world by signing a contract that would give them a share of the musical’s profits. “Actors, like dancers, traditionally have been salaried employees operating, in the case of Broadway, under a negotiated collective bargaining agreement between the Actors’ Equity Association, a trade union, and the Broadway League, an organization of employing producers. That so-called production contract specifies minimum salaries (and other working conditions) for ensemble members and principals; compensation that does not vary according to the financial success or failure of any given show… The union, though, did cheer the deal, after it was done. How could it not?”
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The ethics of the traditional British boarding-school novel: “The characters must face up to their own faults and their failures of empathy, confront the consequences of their own actions when they cause grief to themselves and others. What goes around at Malory Towers, more reliably than in real life, comes around. But this doesn’t always take the form of punishment in the conventional sense. The punishment for being a certain kind of person – self-involved, petty and malicious – is to have to live as that sort of person.”
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The urban renewal debacle: “What is happening in the Tech Triangle, in Austin, in Seattle, is that affluent people are creating the lifestyles that appeal to them. In our generation, there is a trend towards upscale street life, superficial diversity, and feel-good consumerism. It’s a great quality of life for those who participate in it. And cities should encourage this activity, because affluent people pay taxes. But if a city makes it their entire growth strategy, they will end up neglecting core services, and subsidizing activities that cause displacement. I think we’re going to look back on the creative class urbanist movement and see elements of the urban renewal debacle.” (HT: Barton Swaim)
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Essay of the Day:
In Spiked, Frank Furedi argues that the desire for a “post-border” world runs parallel with “a loss of nerve about making moral distinctions”:
“Academic literature and much social commentary now implicitly question the moral status and even the legitimacy of borders. Thinkers frequently highlight the arbitrary and fluid nature of borders. Numerous social theorists insist that borders have become more porous. Often influenced by postmodernist theories – particularly those of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze – these thinkers depict borders as indeterminate and artificial constructions. The so-called artificiality of the borders between East and West, between civilised and uncivilised, or between Europe and Asia, is held up as evidence of the broader meaningless of all physical borders.
“The tendency to view borders, and indeed any strongly drawn distinction, in a negative light is widespread in contemporary popular culture. Being ‘post-border’ or ‘beyond borders’ is now considered a positive value. Just Google the words ‘without borders’: what you’ll find is not just Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) but a bewildering array of organisations that aspire to achieve the status of being ‘without borders’. Engineers, musicians, chemists, veterinarians, executives, librarians, builders, plumbers, lawyers, astronomers, creatives, journalists, rabbis, herbalists acupuncturists, clowns… these are just some of the occupational groups now flaunting their core value of being ‘without borders’.
“Some see this enthusiasm for being ‘without borders’ as an expression of genuine risk-taking, of a bold and pioneering desire to explore the unknown. And it would indeed be inspiring if this attempt to go beyond borders really did represent an endorsement of the enlightened, Kantian notion of cosmopolitanism and the aspiration to be a ‘citizen of the world’. Unfortunately, however, although there are numerous contradictory impulses fuelling this cultural reaction against borders, the dominant driver is an anxiety about taking responsibility for the drawing of symbolic distinctions and clear lines.
“The reaction against borders runs parallel with a loss of nerve about making moral distinctions, underpinned by a reluctance to make any big or serious value judgments. One of the most serious problems afflicting the West today is the unwillingness to ‘hold the line’ – and this now influences even how nation states behave and conceive of themselves.”
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Image of the Day: Hong Kong
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Poem: Joseph S. Salemi, “Your Grandmother’s Verse”
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