Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: Western Civilization

  • Beyond Polarization

    by Bharath Vallabha___ Our society is becoming more polarized. Nuance and subtlety are marginalized as things are reduced to all-encompassing binaries such as red vs. blue. This is as absurd as sorting items in a house in terms of their color instead of their function. Who in their right mind would give up categories such…

  • Wandering thoughts about aesthetics

    by E. John Winner ___ Tits and ass A short while ago, I made a rather incongruously crude remark in reply to a comment concerning the enjoyment of paintings of nude women: “Let’s face it, art often comes down to the desires of the consuming patrons. I particularly enjoy Titian’s tits and ass.”  I thought…

  • Endgame

    E. John Winner ___ This essay is a response generally to an article Dan Kaufman posted here at EA [https://theelectricagora.com/2021/10/14/some-cranky-thoughts-on-philosophers/], and in some ways also to some implications embedded in comments on that article by Robert Gressis, which extend the problems Dan noted beyond philosophy departments to include the whole of the Humanities and even…

  • Thought Control and Cultural Decline

    by Mark English ___ Late last year I wrote a piece about censorship and humor, alluding to the fact that in times of oppression and excessive censorship, humor tends to bubble up and create a space for the expression of dissenting thoughts and feelings. The self-expression involved here may be controlled and deliberate (as in…