#intellectuals

[city-of-ladies]

In 1405, the French writer Christine de Pizan was finishing her Book of the City of Ladies. A response to sexist prejudices and literature, her writings highlighted women's contributions to history and society.

Advocating in favor of women’s education, she wrote of Novella d’Andrea, daughter of Italian jurist Giovanni d’Andrea (c.1275-1348):

To give you a similar, more recent example, without going back to ancient history, there is the case of the famous jurist Giovanni Andrea. He taught at Bologna not quite sixty years ago. He, too, did not share the opinion that education would corrupt women, so he had his lovely and cherished daughter Novella educated in literature and law. When he was busy with other tasks and unable to lecture his students, he would send Novella in his place to present the lecture. In order to ensure that her beauty did not distract her audience, she lectured from behind a small curtain. In that way, she complemented her father and sometimes lightened his load. He loved her so much that he wanted to commemorate her name, so he authored an important legal treatise and named it after his daughter Novella. 

Christine draws a parallel between hers and Novella's story. Her father was supportive of her academic pursuits but her mother wanted her to focus on more traditionally feminine tasks such as spinning and weaving. 

The veracity of this story has been disputed. While some scholars have doubted it, others consider it reliable. Christine’s father had been an academic contemporary of Giovanni d’Andrea at Bologna and was still in contact with his family by 1351. She could thus have learned of Novella through him. 

It is sometimes written that Novella’s sister, Bettina, taught law at Padua. This is a sixteenth-century invention based on Novella’s story. It is however true that Giovanni d’Andrea used to ask his wife’s advice on legal questions. 

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Further reading 

Clarke Peter D., “Giovanni d’Andrea”, in: Condorelli Orazio, Domingo Rafael (ed.), Law and the Christian Tradition in Italy: The Legacy of the Great Jurists            

De Pizan Christine, The Book of the city of ladies

[ginger-berrie]

SO I JUST SAW FALSETTOS LIVE FOR THE FIRST TIME

HOLY SHIT OKAY. HEY GUYS I JUST GOT BACK FROM SEEING FALSETTOS. LIVE. MY FAVOROITE MUSICAL EVER. I HAVE WORDS TO SAY.

So firstly I of course have to say this musical is fucking phenomenal and if u havent seen it even on youtube you HAVE to. onne of the best musicals ever wrutten. ignore any typos in this my hands r still shaking and im not editing htis. OKAY.

The actors. It was a college level production but the actors were so so talented. My favorite performances were from Mendel and Jason, who both pulled off their roles INCREDIBLY. Mendel was like a carbon copy of Brandon Uranowitz he had his mannerisms DOWN. All the nervous ticks, touching his face, being generally so awkward all the time, even his face was just perfec t for the role. And Jason was played by an adult femme-presenting person but they were so good as him!!!!! their voice fit him perfectly and she also perfectly encompassed Jason;s awkward childlike nature. The entire cast was incredible but those two really stood out to me!!!! Everyone's singing voices as well were fantastic, especially Trina's—she KILLED the high notes and even sung up the octave on a few lines !!!! including the "but still the bastard divorced me" and she still belted the "you must exorcise a devil" even AFTER Im Breaking Down. In fucking sane.

THAT BEING SAID THOUGH. Even though i enjouyed every second of it I do wanna make some more analysis-related directing critiques because im fucked up and evil about this show . im so sorry just let me speak here meaout. Stating right now though I've only seen the 2016 revival (about 2 dozen times) and not the original 90's version (been meaning to watch it just havent gotten the chance) so i reserve all TRUE judgement until after I see it!!! maybe some of these choices were in the original but tbh if they were i still like how the revival did it better. okay i swear im not just one of those ppl who is like "tHaTS noT hOw ThEY dId iT On BroADwAy" calm down. thanks <3

First of all. Some of the scenes lacked energy !!!!! Thrill of first love had no homoerotic choreography!!!!! they just kinda sat there on the couch looking morose and barely looking at each other as if they truly just hate each other and feel ANYthing towards each other anymore at all. But thats not the point!!!!!! They dont fully hate each other theyre just lacking the excitement that they once had and it's been replaced with nothing but disagreements and sex. When Whizzer and Marvin do their gay little dance theyre not just dancing and being gross and sexual theyre also FIGHTING!!!! they still care about each other they just dont know how to act!!!! and marvin's a bitch of course. Marvin was still very much a bitch. But because of the lack of energy in this song there was a bit of a lack of chemistry between the two as well, which carried through the whole show. I feel like it's important to see just how gross fucked up n nasty these two are about each other to see how its truly affecting the other people in Marvin's life. Even their chemistry during the chess game was lacking. They just kinda felt like they really hated each other. Which isnt the pointtttttt. Guh

Trina (or the directors idk) also made some choices I wasn't 100% on board with but they were more subtle. Mostly in her tone about Mendel. Up through Please Come To Our House she seemed to really really like Mendel. Like it was clear she was attempting to woo him. But then when he was proposing, and when they were maknig their home together, she just seemed. Unenthused. I know Trina truly doesn't really love her life, and just needs the stability of a nuclear family, but it was odd to see her not even attempt to keep up the facade on her own. Her and Mendel were similarly lacking in a lot of chemistry because of this, which, maybe to some of you makes sense but to me i do want to see them be close even if Mendel isn't absolutely the best.

LAST CRITIQUE OKAY. This one is BIG SPOILERS if u havent seen it yet but probably if ur reading this far youve already seen it okay. The fuckign bar mitzvah!!!!! There was no acknowledgement from Whizzer to Jason as he was reading his Torah !!!!!!! He just layed there in the hospital bed, facing AWAY from the audience so we could only see the very top of his head (which was on purpose for a quick change but) and he didnt get up at all to thank Jason or even acknowledge him :( for all the audience knows maybe he didnt even see Jason get bar mitzvahd. screaming crying throwing up.

OKAY IM DONE W BEING MEAN HERES A BIG CHANGE I REALLY LOVED !!!!!! as well as some smaller changes that i also really liked or were jsut neutral things i noticed

For most of act 2, up until Days Like This, They had this really cool circus imagery? Now once again idk if this is in the OG, but they had a picture of each cluster of characters set up on either side of the stage, and each of them was doing some sort of circus act both in the pictures and on stage, especially during A Day in Falsettoland. When a character was having their point in the song, they'd sometimes cut the lights briefly and suddenly the characters would be struggling to perform their little circus act, and each of them had a differnt one respectively and they all represented their immaturities/flaws/struggles:

Jason was on stilts, representing his need to grow up and perhaps his perceived mental maturity compared to the other characters

Trina was balancing/spinning plates on sticks, representing her need to keep balance and order in her life

Marvin + Whizzer were fencers because of their lingering animosity, yet newfound respect, for one another. Fencing isnt a dangerous sport, like you dont actually hurt your opponent in it, but it;s still a fight and youre still pointoing a weapon at them. guh. (AND BTW they did this during the racquetball scene and HOLY SHIT. I just gotta describe this one. Racquetball number 1 They had their little racquets as they were singing to each other but then when they got really into the game the lights would cut and then theyd be FENCING each other instead!!!!! and then the lights would cut again and itd go back to racquetball!!!! BUT THEN in the racquetball number 2 when it cut to them fencing ONLY MARVIN HAD A SWORD. WHIZZER STILL HAD HIS RACQUET. GIUUHUHGGHGHGHGHGH.;..,.,/;;'.';.;'[[[.)

Then the lesbians from next door were like a duo balancing/acrobatics act where they were always leaning on each other and picking each other up which was cute but also like. Charlotte would start falling in one direction and Cordelia would have to scrambke to catch her. I always hail them as the healthiest couple in the show but sometimes i forget they have problems too, like Cordelia;s insecurity and Charlotte's stress over the virus of course.

And finally Mendel!!!! was the fucking ringmaster!!!!! He had a hoop and a top hat and every time he was trying to calm down Jason (Everyone Hates His Parents), or Caroline, or Trina (A Day in Falsettoland), he would appear with his hoop and top hat, to show that HE is the one who needs to "control" other people's lives, or at least he feels the need to direct them. Mendel of course needs to feel like he's smarter than everyone else and like he's the only one who can help people. It really drove that home and it was an insane realization to come to. Phenomenal directing choice idk who came up with that but. bravissimo to you

Now miscellaneous stuff i liked or noticed!!!

They didn't have the big ol foam block. just some couch ends that they moved around to be diff pieces of furniture. If you've ever seen Waiting In The Wings' analysis on falsettos you might have seen a comment in the youtube section discussing how in the set design for the revival, the lack of real furniture through most of the show represents the lack of maturity of the characters, and as things get serious for them, more real props and set pieces get added. Like the chess board, the decor for Mendel + Trina's home, Whizzer's suitcase, the whole hospital room, etc. They didn't lean into that with this but i think that's fine! its not a necessary detail in my opinion and they did their best with what they had!!

Marvin didn't hand whizzer the suitcase after the chess game. He just grabbed it, and packed it himself. I was waiting for him to slam it into whizzer's chest or something. but no. Whizzer just picked it up and walked off. okay. Neutral bad change imo

Marvin's performances of What would I do and What more can i Say were. Breathtaking. Marvin actor if you're out there reading this your voice is lovely and carries so much emotion in your solo numbers. I Did Cry. a little bit

god their group number harmonies were AMAZING. All of the cast members' voices blended together so well and it was absolutely beautiful. the whole show was beautiful and i adored it i swear. I jsut need somwhere to put my feelings

THE ORCHESTRA FUCKED. IT FUCKED

Okay its getting late now and im fading quickly BUT IF U READ THIS FAR UR INSANE. This is for me and nobody else i just eneded to feelings dump. tl;dr: i fucking lvoe falsettos this was one of the best nights of my life i love you actors i love you pit i love you lighting i love you run crew i love you sound crew i love you musical theatre

[philosophybits]

Some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game. It is as if the class from which independent intellectuals have defected takes its revenge, by pressing its demands home in the very domain where the deserter seeks refuge.

Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia

[phireco]

Why I think that voting is pointless. Vote with your dollar. Stop buying from Amazon and Walmart. And take the time that you spend trolling the internet to put out intellectual writing for others to absorb, instead of memes, that provide a unique point of view. We can't all possibly think either point A or point B is right. That motion is completely ridiculous if you have any respect for probability and math. The people that are running do not represent us and we have been stupid enough as a citizenry to put them back in office again and again.

I've been to over 20 countries and traveled all over this world and seeing all different ways of living it I'll tell you what, we are looking less and less like one of the Premier places to live. I give it 20 years before I would like the places I've been in Southeast Asia where you look to your left and right on the bus, and you see a goat in a chicken. There's already more tents in the major American cities than there are good jobs. God forbid the Democrats or the Republicans have a solution. The Republicans have the same man running in his third consecutive presidential election representing half of the country. The Democrats have a ANOTHER First time nominee that no one thinks is the best their party has to offer.

So I'm not even going to blame the awful selection of people that represent us. I'm going to blame the idiots that register Democrat and Republican which make up the vast majority of this country. All of you are willing to make up your mind on an issue before you even hear it based on which party is arguing in the issue's favor. Anyone who makes up their mind before they hear an issue is a moron. And our country, in both parties, is chock full of moron!

It’s not the politicians we should criticize anymore. Consider how they pander to people whose interests they consistently neglect. They represent none of their true needs, yet still, half of the population admires them while the other half despises them. The opposing figures experience the same divided loyalty—this cycle is fundamentally flawed.

The blame doesn’t lie solely with the politicians; it rests on us. We should have demanded better a long time ago, even rising up for change. It’s not the politicians who are at fault; it’s the public that deserves scrutiny. Let go of hope for a moment.

If the politicians were truly the sole problem, where are the bright and principled individuals who should be stepping up to lead this nation with integrity? In truth, we seem to lack such visionary leaders in our society. Most people appear consumed by trivialities, distracted in shopping malls rather than engaging with the critical issues we face. For my part, I’ve accepted a personal resolution: on election day, I stay home. I do not vote. My reasons are twofold.

First, voting feels meaningless. This country was bought and sold long ago. What transpires every four years is simply a reshuffling of the same rhetoric.

Secondly, I’ve come to believe that those who vote relinquish their right to complain. Others often suggest that abstaining from voting strips one of that very right—a notion I reject. Where's the logic in that? If you cast your ballot and elect dishonest and incompetent leaders who mismanage the country, then you shoulder the responsibility for their actions. You bear the weight of our current state, the dismal future we hand our children, and the decline in intellectual capability that increasingly permeates society.

I, having not participated in the electoral game—staying home on election day—hold no responsibility for the choices made by those in power. I know that shortly, there will be an exciting election that many seem to relish. I’ll be at home that day, doing very little, but I know one thing: the only difference between me and the people that vote is that I'll actually produce something that represents my interests, even if in a small way.

I don’t vote. I see through the charade. It's a diversions that distract us from the journey of intellectual growth. When confronted with the issues of low intelligence and poor decision-making, people often leap to the conclusion that education is the remedy. They call for more funding—more books, teachers, classrooms—believing more resources will solve everything. Yet when we point out that despite these efforts, children continue to struggle academically, the response is often to lower standards instead. This results in a temporary boost in passing rates, making the school look good while the national IQ quietly declines. Before long, gaining access to college might just require possessing a pencil, and understanding the complexities of the end that writes versus the end that erases.

And then we scratch our heads, wondering why 24 countries produce more scientists than we do. We wonder why we are no longer in the top 25 and overall quality of education. Barely the best in this continent. We're just one slot above Mexico.

Politicians know how to wield the word “education,” and they often shield themselves behind three pillars: the flag, the Bible, and children. They tout programs like “No Child Left Behind,” yet it wasn’t long ago they were advocating for a “head start.” Are children gaining ground or losing it?

There is a fundamental reason why education falters, and it's not going to improve. Don’t expect a miracle; accept the reality as it is. The true owners of this country—wealthy business interests that orchestrate decisions and maintain control—are not interested in an educated populace capable of critical thinking. They benefit from a workforce obedient enough to follow orders, yet just intelligent enough to operate machinery and handle paperwork but not to challenge the deteriorating quality of their jobs, benefits, hours, or retirement security.

They have their sights set on your social security funds, too, seeking to reclaim that money to line the pockets of their Wall Street allies. They will achieve this eventually because they own everything—your future, your choices.

This is a vast, intertwined club, and neither you nor I are included. It’s a club that beats its members over the head with messages on what to believe and consume. The playing field is uneven; the game is rigged, and it appears that few notice or care.

Good, honest people from every walk of life—whether blue-collar or white-collar—continue to elect wealthy figures indifferent to their plight. The owners count on this ignorance, banking on the fact that Americans remain blissfully unaware of the injustices they tolerate.

The truth is simple: the American Dream exists because you must be asleep to believe in it.

When the terrorists attacked our country on September 11th 2001, we United as one and vowrd to never forget. Never in a million years did I think that's what we actually met was that, we're going to commemorate the anniversary of the year but they will accomplish their goal and destroy America and everything it stands for by knocking down a few buildings and killing a couple thousand people. Are teenagers have killed more since with guns. And don't mistake me. I'm not downplaying that tragedy. I'm saying that the terrorists knew what they are doing and we are playing right into their hands by standing here divided. Check out my video if you want to flash back to hell it felt To be an American in the weeks following that awful day.

[gregor-samsung]

L'avenir [Things to Come] (Mia Hansen-Løve - 2016)

[dimitrow]

I hate small talk.

I wanna talk about atoms, death, aliens, sex, magic, intellect, the meaning of life, far away galaxies, the lies you've told, your flaws, your favorite scents, your childhood, what keeps you up at night, your insecurity

and fears...

I like people with depth, who speak with emotion from a twisted mind.

I don't want to know "what's up".

[thirdity]

Intellectuals are doomed to disappear when artificial intelligence bursts on the scene, just as the heroes of silent cinema disappeared with the coming of the talkies. We are all Buster Keatons.

Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories II

[philosophybitmaps]

[philosophicalconservatism]

Response To Post On Intellectuals and Authoritarianism.

tmblrbye

It was creatives and intellectuals that pushed the whole of western society away from Monarchy and Aristocracy, into the present era of (yes totally compromised) democracies.

philosophicalconservatism

No it was not.

It was radical 18th century intellectuals who fomented the French Revolution and its bloody Reign Of Terror, on the basis of abstract ideological passion alone. This was abstract ideological passion not anchored or grounded in history or experience. Its result was anarchy followed by the replacement of a king with an emperor. It was not Democracy. By contrast, The American Revolution was not an endeavor by intellectuals to entirely reinvent a society from scratch, it was in fact an attempt to preserve a way of life that had organically evolved over time on the North American continent from an outside threat. It was therefore the antithesis of the French Revolution; an attempt to preserve not overthrow an existing order. This was why Edmund Burke, the father of political Conservatism supported the American Revolution but opposed the French.

Today intellectuals are at the forefront of the movement against free societies and in support of Socialist/Statist ideologies. And their opposition to American style liberal Democracy did not take long; their initial affection for the American Revolution died quickly. Fourier and Marx were attacking that system just a decade or two after the death of Jefferson. This was never what those utopian intellectuals had in mind.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Intellectual, spiritual, and artistic initiative is as dangerous to totalitarianism as the gangster initiative of the mob, and both are more dangerous than mere political opposition. The consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity by the new mass leaders springs from more than their natural resentment against everything they cannot understand. Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life, for any activity that is not entirely predictable. Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.

—Hannah Arendt, On the Origins of Totalitarianism, pt iii, ch x, p 461 (1951). As Arendt states in a footnote around this passage, the reason is that the first-rate talent who agrees with you, no matter how much he or she agrees with you, does so from having made his or her own assessment and decision (free initiative)—that is, does so in a way that reserves the right, even if only hypothetically, to disagree with you. Even the very fact of free agreement with totalitarianism is a danger to totalitarian authority: what the wannabe totalitarian demands is helpless agreement, agreement that could not be otherwise.

[Robert Scott Horton]

[ajumbleoffk]

I wish I had the wherewithal to get on Twitter, find some ridiculous tweet from some online intellectual, and just destroy them so badly and thoroughly that all that looked upon it would be filled with awe. Not so much because I want to be Mr. Big Stuff or feared, but just because .... I don't know why. I just feel so insignificant.

However, when you take a more cosmic view of things, none of this really matters to the universe. We and the solar system are but grains of dust.

Then again, I think of something that Eddie Murphy's character said in that movie "Holy Man". He tells of story of a girl picking up starfish that had washed up on the beach - throwing them back in the ocean. "You can't save them all," he said to her. She responded, "No, but to each one that I save it matters its whole world."

I'm paraphrasing of course. It's just something to think about, I guess. Things matter in different ways from different perspectives.

It takes both microscopes and telescopes to bring new things into view. We can change our whole outlook by zooming in and zooming out.

I matter to myself. I guess that is good enough for me.

[infinitysisters]

“There has long been a tendency in some intellectual circles to believe that the justice of a cause must be proportional to the lengths that people are willing to go to promote it. Only very desperate people, the argument goes, would do such things; therefore, since they do such things, they must be desperate.

The truth is otherwise. As one of the most efficient genocides in history-that of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994-proved, genocide can be fun. People in Rwanda hunted and killed their neighbors and then spent the evenings celebrating, feasting, singing, and dancing. They were happy with their day's work and couldn't wait to resume it. In fact, it was the time of their lives.

Intellectual support in the West for the Soviet Union was at its height when the regime was at its worst. Its atrocities were known and obvious. It was only when the Soviet Union moderated its repression and seemed to have lost the courage of its brutality that support for it in the West waned. Moscow was no longer a model for intellectuals that they deemed worthy of imitation once they had attained power. It had become grey and banal rather than vivid, exciting, and experimentally utopian.”

//Theodore Dalrymple

[burningvelvet]

Mary Shelley’s Journal Entry from July 27th, 1816: she, Percy, and Claire return to Byron’s villa and to their child and nanny after visiting Mont Blanc.

“Saturday, July 27. — It is a most beautiful day, without a cloud. We set off at 12. The day is hot, yet there is a fine breeze. We pass by the Great Waterfall, which presents an aspect of singular beauty. The wind carries it away from the rock, and on towards the north, and the fine spray into which it is entirely dissolved passes before the mountain like a mist.

The other cascade has very little water, and is consequently not so beautiful as before. The evening of the day is calm and beautiful. Evening is the only time I enjoy travelling. The horses went fast, and the plain opened before us. We saw Jura and the Lake like old friends. I longed to see my pretty babe. At 9, after much inquiring and stupidity, we find the road, and alight at Diodati. We converse with Lord Byron till 12, and then go down to Chapuis, kiss our babe, and go to bed.”

[philosophybits]

The man of powerful intellect runs over with ideas; he scatters them by the handful. He is wretched if he cannot share them with others, cannot scatter them to the four winds, for in this is his life.

Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist Morality

[jettisonantics]

sturgeon

[gravalicious]

I feel the most affinity with Marriott’s writing when it illuminates blackness as a structural position, as an ontology rather than an identity or sociological experience, though the latter is usually what we mean when we say “race.” Too often our work is singularly focused on individual experience or relies on a Cartesian form of consciousness. Such work focuses on black people’s identities or stops at what black folks say about their experience without interrogating the conditions that make such speech possible and without interrogating the limits of consciousness itself. I worry that in this work, history and structure disappear. It is my view that the lives of black people of all genders are structured in the context of antiblack existential negation, but it is rare to have our position as shattered subjects theorized and even rarer for it to be theorized with deep attentiveness to gender and sexuality — as Marriott does. His scholarship speaks to the existential paradox of blackness, what I refer to as “existential negation” in this essay —namely, to have subjectivity while one’s subjecthood is constantly negated, one’s voice made inaudible by cultural fantasy, and one’s ego assailed by an Other that is inseparable from the self.[3] Marriott is known as an elegant theorist of psychoanalysis and culture. But I have been most struck by the ethics of his writing — in particular, by its ability to bring into focus the world’s collective disavowal of the violence subtending the production of blackness. This collective disavowal exists despite or because of the centrality of antiblackness for the production of the world’s sociality. The imagistic quality of the prose is the stuff of nightmares: the dread- inspiring quality of the unconscious life of race, a nightmarish vision of black men that has been imposed across the color line.

Zakiyyah Iman Jackson - Waking Nightmares—on David Marriott. [GLQ 1 June 2011; 17 (2-3): 357–363]