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Slate.com has a piece by Jeff Greenfield about Obama's perceived elitism, referencing a book by George Orwell from 1937 called The Road To Wigan Pier. Apparently in that book, Orwell describes socialists as condescending snobs, using language similar to that often used to criticize liberals today. Greenfield concludes: ... if you want to court these voters in a way that will resonate with them, you could do a lot worse than heeding the cautionary words of George Orwell. And Barack? Ix-nay on the egg-white omelets. Greenfield's piece reminded me of ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) adamcadre's reviews of works by Orwell. These include a review of Wigan Pier that bashes Orwell's anti-intellectualism. Cadre's conclusion, rather different from Greenfield's, is that ultimately The Road to Wigan Pier is less a political tract than a psychodrama. ... [Orwell comes across as being] terrified that he's too soft, insufficiently manly. So he overcompensates, like Chris Matthews going into raptures about Fred Thompson's musk. His intellect tells him to be a socialist, but inside him is a twelve-year-old who never grew up and is haunted by the question, "Is that normal?" I wonder whether Obama will try to build issues of class and elitism into another [scarequote] landmark speech[/scarequote], what he'll say, how he'll do. On a related topic, slate.com also has a piece on possible reasons why many Catholics are choosing Clinton over Obama. Tags: politics, psychology
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It's always interesting when conventional wisdom is challenged, particularly when it's what everyone learns in school. - By way of shadesong : The Earth's interior is more complex than just core, mantle, crust. That page stresses an analogy with peanut butter, but the page it links to makes it sound more like the interior of a Lava lamp. Er.
- That first page also links to a page asserting that the "map of the tongue," with the four types of taste buds nicely arrayed, is a myth. (Train of thought: I've heard about a hypothesis that language constrains thought. As I think about the idea that there are four kinds of taste, I think there may be something to that hypothesis. To the extent that I understand it at all ;) )
- By way of yhlee: The political/economic structure of medieval Europe was more complex than just lord, vassal, serf. Here is one myth that is being questioned:
Historians were already aware that the general perception of lawless noblemen and renegade knights holding sway over a fearful populace in their accumulation of personal power was yet another myth about medieval times. But [some now think] it wasn't the feudal relationship that kept lawlessness to a minimum; it was respect for the monarchy and rule of law.
The last story reminds me a little of James Loewen's book debunking some myths in American history. These topics are, needless to say, hard to deal with objectively... Tags: history, media, science
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Three-part BBC miniseries about Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, and their circle. Does a good job of communicating how controversial their work was Back Then. It does get a little didactic at times ("Art is not supposed to be about the real -- it's supposed to be about the ideal!", or vice versa), but the actors make it work. Nice visuals, as you would expect. I enjoyed it a great deal. Stars Richard Armitage (the actor, not the diplomat) as Monet. Tags: tv, visual arts
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