A Response to "El País"

by Disciple of Science

(This post is written in response to Eyck Freymann's article "El País.")

I would not say that "The age of dogmatic disapproval of all things Russian, or European, or Jewish, or Muslim - is in its twilight." This may sound cynical, but, at least in this country, McCarthyism and xenophobia are still holding quite a bit of power. For instance, the recent CPAC convention was ripe with McCarthyist sentiment, with many of the speakers talking for long intervals about the scourge of socialism (they would even go so far as to mix socialism up with communism and communism with authoritarian communism/Stalinism.)

Europe, on the other hand, is, as Young Sentinel has mentioned, progressing much more quickly than the U.S. in analyzing culturally divisive issues and even doing so in editorials. Such analyzation in the realm of the editorial has a much greater effect on thought than the usual "Politician A made a gaff, Politician B said something about that gaff, Politician C voted for a bill that Politician A put before Congress, what should Politicians B and C do now? How can Politician A be re-elected?" articles that float around in our newspapers and on our television screens.

I have also noticed that, in Europe, the philosophical allegory is making a comeback in the sense that there are actually authors writing them again. One such work, which I read a couple of months ago, is Jose Saramago's "Death With Interruptions" (I know that I am not supposed to put quotation marks around the title of a book, but I can't figure out how to italicize or underline it,) which examines Nietzsche's idea about the death of God as well as the economic implications of eternal life (though the later part of the book has little to do with the allegory outside of a few philosophical parts, but, in terms of modern literature, it is still significant because of the literary devices that are used.)