Worried about postmodern 'thinking'? Or about the confused interpretations of the past in connection with racism? Or wondering where identity politics come from?
"I’d argued that Shakespeare’s audience’s would not have found Desdemona’s attraction to Black Othello, who was Christian and a soldier for Venice, so difficult to understand because prejudice against skin color did not become prevalent until a little later in the seventeenth century when the Atlantic Slave Trade gained steam, and that religious and national differences were far more profound before that. I was told this was problematic by an eminent professor and asked how Black communities in contemporary America would feel about my claim. If today’s African Americans felt badly about it, it was implied, it either could not have been true in the seventeenth century or it is morally wrong to mention it."
There is a threat of a certain form of totalitarian 'thinking' today which is dedicated to suicide while being inspired by the tenets of civilized humanism.
Super-sharp analytical essay on the website of Areo:
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