NB: An interesting essay. However, Heyking seems to conflate China and ‘Asia’. DS John von Heyking In order to cut through the two false alternatives – “catch up” and “social harmony” – I appeal to the original figure of Western liberal education, Socrates. Socrates indeed embodies the individual as it has been transmitted throughout the… Read More The Figure of Socrates and its Significance for Liberal Education in Asia
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow On the shores of Gitche Gumee,Of the shining Big-Sea-Water,Stood Nokomis, the old woman,Pointing with her finger westward,O’er the water pointing westward,To the purple clouds of sunset. Fiercely the red sun descendingBurned his way along the heavens,Set the sky on fire behind him,As war-parties, when retreating,Burn the prairies on their war-trail;And the moon, the Night-sun, eastward,Suddenly starting from his ambush,Followed fast those bloody footprints,Followed in that fiery war-trail,With its glare upon his features. And Nokomis, the old woman,Pointing with her finger westward,Spake these words to Hiawatha:“Yonder dwells the great Pearl-Feather,Megissogwon, the Magician,Manito of Wealth and Wampum,Guarded by his fiery serpents,Guarded by the black pitch-water. You can see his fiery serpents,The Kenabeek, the great serpents,Coiling, playing in the water;You can see the black pitch-waterStretching far away beyond them,To the purple clouds of sunset! “He it was who slew my father, By his wicked wiles and cunning,When he from the moon descended,When he came on earth to seek me.He, the mightiest of Magicians,Sends the fever from the marshes,Sends the pestilential vapors,Sends the poisonous exhalations,Sends the white fog from the fen-lands,Sends disease and death among us! “Take your bow, O Hiawatha,Take your arrows, jasper-headed,Take your war-club, Puggawaugun,And your mittens, Minjekahwun,And your birch-canoe for sailing,And the oil of Mishe-Nahma,So to smear its sides, that swiftly You may pass the black pitch-water;Slay this merciless magician,Save the people from the feverThat he breathes across the fen-lands,And avenge my father’s murder!” Straightway then my HiawathaArmed himself with all his war-gear,Launched his birch-canoe for sailing;With his palm its sides he patted,Said with glee, “Cheemaun, my darling,O my Birch-canoe! leap forward,Where you see the fiery serpents,Where you see the black pitch-water!”… https://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=283 The Gael – The Last Of The Mohicans Theme
John von Heyking Conversation and the “Turning Around of the Soul” One of the common criticisms of the contemporary university is that it lacks individuals unwilling or incapable of conversing. Critics such as Anthony Kronman and Stephen Miller rightly observe that there’s something about contemporary culture and the contemporary university hostile to the arts or… Read More Periagoge: Liberal Education in the Modern University
How conservatives made him their icon and distorted his ideas Kim Phillips-Fein How did Smith’s ideas become so thoroughly integrated into conservative defenses of the free market against regulation? And are these the only ways of reading his work? These are the questions at the heart of Adam Smith’s America, Glory M. Liu’s intriguing account of… Read More The Betrayal of Adam Smith
First posted February 22, 2016 NB: This post deals with the political debate sparked off by the recent events in JNU. It is for the consideration of ordinary students as well as other concerned individuals, in India and abroad. It is offered in the belief that a forthright dialogue on divisive themes is the only way… Read More What is to be Undone (2016)
First posted April 06, 2020 George Russell Lakey (born 2 November 1937) is an activist, sociologist, and writer who added academic underpinning to the concept of nonviolent revolution. He also refined the practice of experiential training for activists which he calls “Direct Education”. A Quaker, he has co-founded and led numerous organizations and campaigns for justice and peace.” Emergencies… Read More George Lakey on Capitalism, public health and the Nordic model / Noam Chomsky nails the most overlooked element of the pandemic
By Lynn Parramore / Institute for New Economic Thinking When you think of original sin and the fall of Adam and Eve, an economics class probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. After all, economics is a secular discipline. Or is it? Maybe not entirely, considering that the earliest economic thinkers had religion very… Read More The Original Sin of Economics
Adam Tooze This Valentines day, Americans gifted each other in the order of 58 million pounds of chocolate, much of it wrapped in 36 million heart-shaped boxes. It was a particularly busy period for the global chocolate industry, which in 2020 processed c. 5 million tons of cocoa beans into chocolate confectionary, generating around 130 billion dollars… Read More The Closing of the Cocoa Frontier
His power as a writer came not only from the beauty of his poetry, but his deep understanding of the ambiguities and contradictions that go into making a human being and a human society. He grasped that human history is merely itself. It moves towards no goal. By Chris Hedges / The Real News Network Shakespeare’s… Read More Shakespeare and the Politics of the 21st Century
First posted March 30, 2019 Series: 1944-2019, 75 years of interference from the World Bank and the IMF (Part 1) In 2019, the World Bank (WB) and the IMF will be 75 years old. These two international financial institutions (IFI), founded in 1944, are dominated by the USA and a few allied major powers who… Read More Eric Toussaint: Concerning the founding of the Bretton Woods’ Institutions
After the truth-shower 