Daedalus articles from September 2002

Daedalus archives from September 2002

The unsettled legacy of the Cold War.(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2002... On May 24, 2002, at a summit meeting in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush signed a treaty and issued a declaration of political accommodation promising, in Bush's words, to "liquidate the legacy of the...

Speaking of beauty.
September 22, 2002... It is not clear why we talk about beauty unless we have nothing else to talk about. It may be urgent to have a theory of truth or, better still, a principle of truth, so that we can decide whether a particular statement counts as true or false....

An argument about beauty.(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2002... 1 Responding at last, in April of 2002, to the scandal created by the revelation of innumerable cover-ups of sexually predatory priests, Pope John Paul II told the American cardinals summoned to the Vatican, "A great work of art may be...

On beauty. (Plotinus).(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2002... Editor's Note: One of the earliest works written by Plotinus (A.D. 204 - 70), this elegant short treatise, published as "Ennead I, 6,"follows Plato's "Symposium" and "Phaedrus" in equating beauty with the good - an association analyzed...

The abuse of beauty.(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2002... It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident any more, not its inner life, not its relation to the world, not even its right to exist. -- Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, 1969 1 It is the mark of the...

The art of being unselfish.(taste (Aesthetics))
September 22, 2002... Almost everyone knows that when he heard a witty remark of Whistler's, Oscar Wilde cried, "I wish I'd said that!" and Whistler replied, "You will, Oscar, you will." What not everyone may know is what Whistler had said. "My dear...

Buying the world.
September 22, 2002... 1 Nothing is so conditional, let us say circumscribed, as our feeling for the beautiful. Anyone who tried to divorce it from man's pleasure in himself would find the ground give way beneath him. - Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1889...

The Elgin Marbles, romanticism & the waning of 'ideal beauty'.
September 22, 2002... On June 7, 1816, the House of Commons, after an unprecedented debate, voted to purchase a collection of ancient Greek marbles from Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin. A former ambassador to Turkey, Elgin had convinced the local authorities...

Educating the eye of the beholder--American cosmetics abroad.
September 22, 2002... When the Taliban were forced from power in Afghanistan, American news media delighted in reporting the sure signs of freedom in Kabul: popular music could be heard again, videotapes reappeared, men shaved, and, not least, beauty parlors...

The Use of Force.
September 22, 2002... The use of force Framed by window, the branches swim in place, they seem to. No wonder struggling gets so noften, at first, mistaken for wild abandon: a very likeness. Difference matters, as in: in you, a permanence ...

The Winds of Change, the Winds of Hope, the Winds of Disaster. (Fiction).(Short Story)
September 22, 2002... The WINDS OF CHANGE boarded the Western Comet in Beceuse St. Jour; the WINDS OF HOPE came aboard the next day in a small Ontario resort town sitting by a body of water so still and blue people often forget its existence. Where the WINDS OF...

On a danger of deliberative democracy.(group polarization)
September 22, 2002... Imagine the following situations: * Affirmative action is under attack in the state of Texas. A number of professors and students at a branch of the University of Texas are inclined to be supportive of affirmative action; they meet to...

On fear, uncertainty & scientific progress.
September 22, 2002... In war, technological advances play a significant role. In World War II, that role was much larger than ever before, as scientists shared a great deal of the credit for the Allied victory. During and after that war, science had sufficient...

On policy initiatives for children.(education)
September 22, 2002... When I was a child, a tonsillectomy was a rite of passage. Forty years ago, when I was in charge of the oncology unit at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, a radical mastectomy was routinely recommended to patients with breast cancer. Only after...