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Avatar (Take 2)

In my last post, I placed Cameron’s Avatar in the interpretive framework of eco-political thought and practice. One could approach it in different ways, too, of course, one of which is to look at its interesting configuration of the relation between myth and science, which is also related to what I said before about the […]

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The ecopolitics of Avatar

James Cameron’s latest film, Avatar, is, as far as I can judge, a highly significant film, at least as important as the first two Terminator films (and in a related sense, Titanic) directed by him. It has been criticised in various quarters as just another maudlin love story (it recalls the story of Pocahontas, among […]

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A multifaceted mirror for individuals (3)

In my previous post I said that one has to go further (as Kierkegaard himself went further) than the two Kierkegaardian models discussed earlier. More specifically, in the last section of Either/or, II — entitled “Ultimatum”, which consists largely of a “sermon” (supposedly by a pastor-friend of Judge William) with the heading, “The edification implied […]

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A multifaceted mirror for individuals (2)

In my previous post, I reconstructed Kierkegaard’s aesthetic model for existence briefly, pointing out the implications this way of living has for human relationships and for one’s sense of identity. This is not unproblematic, of course. Hence the rejoinder, on Kierkegaard’s part, to the implicit claims made by the pseudonymous A in praise of the […]

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A multifaceted mirror for individuals (1)

In Either/Or, Volumes I and II, Kierkegaard constructs different models of human existence. They seem to be primarily intended by him as mirrors in which his readers may recognise themselves, or as fictions which could function as indications of different ways in which individuals may live their lives, with a view to highlighting the implications […]

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Race vs culture

A lot has been written on TL about race and about racism — some of it insightful, some less so, to say the least. I usually steer clear of writing about this because it is such a sensitive issue and because certain idiots will always try to capitalise on anything one says that may appear […]

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Love and finitude

But what if all that stuff about “kissing the joy as it flies”, which I wrote about some time ago here (see “The pragmatics of love”), just does not seem to work, or work out, and despite all one’s attempts to do justice to one’s beloved — albeit within the inescapable limits of one’s humanity […]