Translated material
Other languages #19
This time it was a snowman who got caught. Firstly, he is a man (for us this is a snow woman, but for normal Anglo-Saxons it’s the other way around), but what’s even worse is that he’s always white! British researcher Tricia Kusak, who carefully studied the history of the snowman, came to the conclusion that it represents a symbol of male dominance. The very fact of building a snowman on the street (and not at home!) indicates the distribution of social roles between a man and a woman: a man dominates in society, and a woman can only be the guardian of the home.
Quote: "The typical snowman - in a hat, scarf and with a contented smile on his face - is a carnival figure representing carnal pleasures."
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Pornography as Sacred Language Brian Duff Bad Subjects
Pornography is a sacred language, something like Latin or Church Slavonic, a political science student from Berkeley is convinced. Any sacred language is necessary to communicate certain higher truths to listeners. The language of pornography is needed by the male half of humanity to practice their cult, the highest meaning of which, as you might guess, is the enslavement of women. Here is another, but non-trivial word in defense of radical feminism.
Quote: “Nothing brings to mind the old (pre-Vatican II) Catholic mass like a modern strip club. Priests in formal robes perform the same ritual before the altar in a language so incomprehensible to the audience that it seems to turn into music┘ If you look at it "What happens within the walls of a strip club, the comparison suggests itself: visitors sit in front of dancers dressed (or undressed) in a special way, who also perform an almost unchanged ritual."
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Beyond Liberal and Conservative Half-truths Ronald Sider IntellectualCapital
It seems to many that Americans live much richer than us. And it is true. However, poverty remains one of the most pressing problems in the United States. Despite unprecedented economic growth in recent decades, America's poor are not getting richer. Between 1974 and 1996, the average income (adjusted for inflation) of the bottom 20% of the population fell by 10%. At the same time, the average income of the wealthiest 20% of Americans increased by almost 40% between 1994 and 1999 alone. How can we explain this paradox? Liberals believe that globalization and the collapse of trade unions are to blame, and propose increasing funding for government programs. Conservatives blame the weakening of the family institution and are convinced that private religious foundations will help the cause. The solution to the problem lies somewhere in the middle - for example, in government funding of religious programs, says the theology professor who wrote the article.
Quote: “Today, 34.5 million Americans still live below the poverty line: their annual income does not exceed $16,600 for a family of four. And 40% of these poor people earn almost half that amount. 18.9% live in poverty our children; 44.3 million Americans do not have health insurance. These are the facts in all their ugliness."
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Compromising Position? Writers and Artists in the Cultural Cold War Scott Sherman Britannica.com
Albert Camus, Robert Conquist and Bertrand Russell worked for the CIA. It’s not that they received encryption from the center, but simply took indirect participation in a large anti-Soviet propaganda project. In the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA heavily funded intellectual publications, scientific conferences, and even musical tours in an effort to distract Western European intellectuals from their then-fascination with communist ideas. Soon all this was revealed and a scandal ensued. This means that Comrade Suslov was not lying: they really started all these bourgeois arts in order to undermine the moral foundations of the builders of communism.
Quote: “In those years, the CIA, through the Congress of Cultural Freedoms (an organization created specifically for propaganda purposes), supported avant-garde composers, thereby encouraging the development of musical trends prohibited by Stalin┘ In 1951, in Paris, the Congress began publishing a magazine called Preuves, the main purpose of which there was a controversy with the influential magazine Les temps modernes published by Sartre."
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Pay on Delivery Margaret Talbot The New York Times Magazine
In the last (still nineteenth) century, it was believed that birth pain was given to a woman as atonement for original sin. Today, supporters of “natural” childbirth are convinced that anesthesia does not give a woman the opportunity to fully experience the culminating moment of life, which, in particular, has an impact on her subsequent functioning as a mother. A regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, who published an article two weeks after the birth of her second daughter, proves her hard-won conviction that what matters most is not how you give birth, but how you raise her.
Quote: “Today’s purists no longer consider pain as a punishment for sins, but continue to consider refusal of anesthesia heroic. They look at contractions as a kind of performance for which a woman can and should prepare and during which she must show her best side ". In other words, they see childbirth as an opportunity for personal self-affirmation. Something like climbing Everest or crossing the Andes. They see childbirth as a kind of extreme sport."
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It started with a kiss Claire Ainsworth New Scientist
Kissing is as unnatural as wearing pants. A kiss is a cultural invention, a ritual that has nothing to do with the natural needs of a person. Referring to the authoritative opinions of psychologists and anthropologists, the author of the article tells the history and reasons for the emergence of this cute perversion.
Quote: “The first Europeans to adopt this habit were the Greeks. But mutual kissing became truly popular only in Ancient Rome. The erotic Latins even had several words to designate different types of kisses. The word osculum meant a light peck on the cheek, the word basium √ a more erotic kiss on the lips, and in the word saviolum - passionate kissing with the participation of the tongue.
By the time of the late Middle Ages, kissing had already become firmly established in the everyday life of Europeans, but then the Catholic Church decided that things were getting out of control. Only a kiss as a sign of reverence for the Lord began to be considered the only acceptable thing. A kiss undertaken for the sake of carnal pleasure or - even worse - with the aim of inducing adultery, was regarded as a mortal sin."
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Art house lives ("Cinema is not for everyone" still lives) Mark Le Fanu (Mark Lefan) Prospect
Will the low-budget European David give way to the multinational Hollywood Goliath? European (as well as American) “high” cinema still exists (mainly due to subsidies), and even looks good. The trouble is that it is becoming less and less accessible to the general public, says a Danish film professor, who also holds the post of director of a cinema and is familiar with the realities of the film distribution business first-hand. Democracy and the market do their job: people want to see a movie with a good ending, and distributors buy what the people want to see. In the end, “high” art begins to pretend to be “low”, slowly reaches out for it, and the familiar scent of postmodernism is in the air. There are, of course, rare exceptions, the author sighs: for example, “Life is beautiful.” But even the cheerful "Black Cat, White Cat" never became an international hit.
Quote: “Hollywood and European types of cinema differ not only in their scale, but also in their very essence: they can hardly even be considered one type of art. I don’t want to give out ratings and say what is better and what is worse. They are just different cinema, and each has its own audience. The danger is that Hollywood will continue to do what it has always done. And will do it better than others. At the same time, European cinema is gradually fading, sometimes irrevocably losing the features that once made it uncommon facial expression".
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