Book Reports:
The Plague by Albert Camus
Albert Camus’ 1947 novel, La Peste, translated into English as The Plague, is a major work of literature by a giant of the 20th century. Like any great literature there is more to the work than first meets the eye. It drives home Edmund Burke’s quote concerning the triumph of evil when good men do nothing. Camus was an existentialist, though he did not approve of the label. The 19th century philosopher, Frederic Nietzsche, was a pre-existentialist and his ideas laid the foundation for those who came after, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. In between Nietzsche and the modernists lie the Nazis. History is not static. While it can influence the events of the present, the present also has an indirect effect on the past in a revisionist way. The Nazis embraced and then perverted the ideas of existentialism taken from Nietzsche. The Plague can be seen as an indictment of the German National Socialists as well as a slam at the government of France for its brutal treatment of French colonials. Albert Camus uses rats and pestilence as a metaphor for the atrocities of fascism in his existential novel, condemning Germany and France alike for having committed crimes against humanity. (continued)
The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner
Robert L. Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers has been in print for over 50 years. It is a critically acclaimed work which sheds light on the philosophies of six of the world’s greatest minds in Economics. Heilbroner makes it possible to compare and to contrast the theories of some of the giants in the field of national wealth. There are not two more diametrically opposing views of economics than the ideas of the capitalist Adam Smith and the father of Socialism, Karl Marx.
Heilbroner quotes Adam Smith, in his The Wealth of Nations as saying, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own self interest,” (55). Smith decided early on that it was self-interest which drives an economy. A human will do that which is to his advantage naturally, but inevitably that which is best for the individual is something which society requires or else it will not advance the cause of the individual performing it. While the man may not be conscious of the advantage to society, or at least is not considering the advantage to be quintessential, it just naturally happens. Smith said that though the man is simply looking out for his own best interest, he is, nonetheless, being guided by an Invisible Hand to arrive at an end, which was not his original goal at all. (continued)
Art
The Kiss by Rodin and Brancusi
...While most of Paris’ sculptors were working in clay and having their work cast in bronze, Brancusi most often labored as a carver and utilized the direct method of creating his sculpture. He removed the superfluous material and was left with his creation. In the case of his original The Kiss, (there are several versions), as the old saw goes, he simple cut off everything that did not look like a pair of kissers. Carved in limestone, it measures 23” x 13 ¾ “ x 10 ¾”. It is a highly stylized depiction of a man and woman face to face, their arms entwined, their lips pressed together and their bodies touching. The work gives the impression that the two are so engrossed and joined in love and sensuality that they have become one. Rodin’s version of the same subject is likewise carved directly into stone, in this case, marble, though there exist many replicas of the work in bronze, cast from Rodin’s original carving. The original title was Francesca da Rimini and depicted a scene from Dante’s Inferno. It represents an Italian noblewoman who falls in love with her husband’s younger brother. The couple are nude and embracing, with their lips close, each to the other, but not actually touching, so the kiss is not consummated. (continued)
Poetry
A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes
America by Claude McKay
The two poems, A Dream Deferred, by Langston Hughes, and America, by Claude McKay, deal with the subject of their respective authors' views of life in the United States. They both express the poets’ views of racial discrimination and they both imply a bad end in their own way. McKay sees America’s treasure, in time, sinking beneath the sands, while Hughes sees an explosion if the black race continues to be put off, or deferred, in its attempt to achieve racial equality. Yet while the poems share a common theme they deliver their message by rather radically different methods. America is more what a poem is expected to be in the sense that McKay uses flowery words to unfold his theme while Hughes is pithy, gritty and down to earth basic. Hughes uses both metaphor and simile but selects less lofty words to deliver a powerful message. He is more to the point and more easily understood as to his meaning. The two works are similar in content and dissimilar in the way they go about delivering a message of implied doom; still they are the same genre and can be considered similar enough to taken as a matched pair, to be read and considered together. (continued)
Course questions in essay form
Who Won The Cold War?
It is popular for the United States to lay claim to having won the Cold War, and assuming that to be correct, it can likely be considered a Pyrrhic Victory. Such victory notwithstanding, the 1980s saw an increase in Cold War offensive by the Reagan Administration (Walker 1995 p 267) and eventually the withdrawal and collapse of the Soviet Empire during the presidency of Gorbachev. The United States is the last man standing in what became a war of attrition and the Soviet Union has ceased to exist. Ergo, it is assumed by process of elimination that the United States of America is de facto winner of that war. While the Cold War between the world’s two Superpowers has ended there has been no Peace Dividend as the American people were promised. Nations need enemies against whom they may rally so the government of the United States quickly found alternate Boogie Men to rail against and the country has assumed the role of Policeman, ever eager to impose its will and its way of life on smaller nations which want no part of either. The satellites of the former Soviet Union may be the only true winners and the poor Third World nations of the world are the true losers. (continued)
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