The Sleepwalk of the West

French cinema is the high-visibility indicator of a great country’s cultural hara-kiri. Awards ceremonies are always fundamentally political, but in France they’re actually… fundamentalist. After winning at Cannes last years, the film A Prophet was fawned over at the Césars, with no less than nine awards. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best… [...]

In the US, the process whereby a hick church can become a Sunday school then “college” then “university” in only a few short years is trenchantly and hilariously documented in Paul Fussell’s Class: A Guide through the American Status System. An equivalent – only slightly less radical – change happened in the UK when technical [...]

Allan Bloom traces the popular enthusiasm for criminality to the 19th century German philosophers. Culturally – according to him – the new appetite hits the mainstream with “Mack the Knife” from Brecht’s and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, in 1928 Weimar Germany. It was the first time the bourgeoisie could blithely – almost compulsively – sing [...]

A headline to stop you in your tracks: US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive. The article is mostly about Flint – the poorest city on the US:
“The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across the US, there’s an assumption that all development is good, that if communities [...]