No.6: 2023.08.25

Aeschylus/Gandhi/Mandela/Orwell/Pericles/Rousseau/Whitman/Wittgenstein/Woolf

Here's some things people have been writing:

Wittgenstein’s views on language distortion earned him a shout out in Dao Lang’s song Luocha Haishi. The tune shares its name with a 17th century tale on hypocrisy, thus some see it as a shot at China. economist

Gandhi and Mandela were unjustly imprisoned. Trump’s supporters may choose to see their guy in the same light, especially if they feel stuck with him. theatlantic

Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is a story more about London than the eponymous characters. Luc Guillemot visualizes how the characters move through space in the story. datawrapper

Orwell’s rules for writing make for a great prompt to de-jargonize your with chatGPT. thenewstack

Pericles, Rousseau, Whitman, Livy, Homer, Herodotus, Adam Smith, &c. are held up as icons of the history taught in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) societies in a new book, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. That tradition’s bent to think about building society from the ground up is contrasted–tentatively–against eastern traditions. substack

Aeschylus famously marked truth as the first casualty in war. Some think that independence fails first as we succumb propaganda and self-censorship. shorensteincenter