Revealing ‘The Great Amputation’ of Postmodernism’s Triumph
I Wanna Get Anagogical
By Scott Seward Smith
The most important piece of writing of the past decade to me is an article written last year in Modern Age by Ewa Thompson, “The Great Amputation: Language in a Postmodern Era.” It is important because it identifies the key to our modern stupidity.
This stupidity is increasingly irksome in the way that it has seeped into political decisions that affect our lives. Thompson’s discovery is even more profound, however. She explains one of my great frustrations: when we have literally at our fingertips the entire record of the greatest thoughts of human history, why do we not use them to help solve our problems, understand each other better, or merely delight in the play of genius? Why, furthermore, do we in general not contribute to them? Why are we becoming sub-literate? As Thompson writes: “words are losing their power to convince, console, and elicit joy.” As someone who takes literally Faulkner’s injunction that man is immortal because he alone among animals has an inexhaustible voice, the disempowering of the word is a matter of grave significance.
How to Succeed without Really Trying
By Robert Arrington
Recently, on YouTube, I watched a stage performance of the musical, “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying”. One of my favorite scenes in the play is the one in which Ponty the window-washer worms his way into the Executive Suite by convincing the company president he is a Groundhog, i.e., a graduate of “Old Ivy”. Together, they sing the fight song, which exhorts the football team to “rip, rip, rip the Chipmunk off the field.”
Calling Harvey Weinstein a Pig May Be an Insult to Swine Everywhere, But…
… When He Walks Into a Courtroom He is You and Me
By David Churchill Barrow
There is an ongoing controversy upon the campus of Harvard University an a protest against Law Professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., an African-American jurist of renown, and Dean of the Winthrop House. Spray-Painted upon that house were DOWN WITH SULLIVAN!, OUR RAGE IS SELF DEFENSE, WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON! and YOUR SILENCE IS VIOLENCE.
Over 300 people have signed an online petition calling for his resignation as dean, and members of the Association of Black Harvard Women have addressed a public letter to him stating “You have failed us.” His sin? Agreeing to be part of the legal defense team of Harvey Weinstein.
