Posted on 05/12/2009 7:29:14 AM PDT by ReformationFan
Outside of politics, sports, and popular entertainment, how many living Germans, or French, or Austrians, or even Brits can you name?
Even well-informed people who love art and literature and who follow developments in science and medicine would be hard pressed to come up with many, more often any, names. In terms of greatness in literature, art, music, the sciences, philosophy, and medical breakthroughs, Europe has virtually fallen off the radar screen.
This is particularly meaningful given how different the answer would have been had you asked anyone the same question between just 80 and 120 years ago — and certainly before that. A plethora of world-renowned names would have flowed.
Obvious examples would include (in alphabetical order): Brecht, Buber, Cezanne, Chekhov, Curie, Debussy, Eiffel, Einstein, Freud, Hesse, Kafka, Mahler, Mann, Marconi, Pasteur, Porsche, Proust, Somerset Maugham, Strauss, Stravinsky, Tolstoy, Zeppelin, Zola.
Not to mention the European immortals who lived within the century before them: Mozart, Beethoven, Dostoevsky, Darwin, Kierkegaard, Manet, Monet, Hugo and Van Gogh, to name only a few.
What has happened?
What has happened is that Europe, with a few exceptions, has lost its creativity, intellectual excitement, industrial innovation, and risk taking. Europe's creative energy has been sapped. There are many lovely Europeans; but there aren't many creative, dynamic, or entrepreneurial ones.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Yes, but anti-Semitism is a reliable and for many, an instinctive tonic for this malaise. Fortunately, my fellow Jews understand this, and in a glorious moment of self-sacrifice, they voted for it. Perhaps they felt out-victimized by the Palis. I’ve never felt so embarassed.
That Vitality is the TRUTH which is GOD being forced out!!
The brilliance of socialism is what one poster stated: most people want to coast with little effort and everything free. Even if the quality of healthcare is low and education is dreadful. People love the impression of all things free, especially if someone else pays for it.
Jews are the mystery (and I have Jewish cousins). After the purges in Germany and Russia, they still support Socialism and Communism even though they suffer greatly under them.
Fortunately, history proves otherwise, a godless society produces: Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Fascism, Maoism, and Nazism, and substitute religions, feminism, environmentalism, and socialism.
Avoid needless words. They didn't need the last four words of the headline.
“The brilliance of socialism....”
Quite agree. There’s very little possibility of getting underneath the idea of “free”. It’s been researched by advertisers for decades. Very few seem to realize that when a dog takes a dump on your lawn, that too is “free”. Exactly as you said, you can wander down any number of logical argument paths about the fetid quality of government cheese but at least it’s free.
I like Prager, but he may be exaggerating a bit. The winners of the Nobel Prize last year were two French scientists (for discovering the HIV virus) and a German (for discovering that the virus that causes cervical cancer.) These people aren’t recognized names, but that’s more a function of the fact that few scientists are recognized names anymore. Science has shifted in the last 100 years from huge individual breakthroughs to incremental breakthroughs by teams. That’s good for science, but bad for any scientist becoming famous.
“Socialism and Secularism Suck Vitality Out of Society
Avoid needless words. They didn’t need the last four words of the headline.”
Agreed.
(Which reminds me of a joke about the dean of a college who asked the head of the Physics department, "Why do you need all this expensive equipment? All the Mathematics department asks for is paper, pencils, and erasers." He thought a moment. "And the Philosophy department is even better. All they ever ask for are paper and pencils.")
Let’s not go into how much it costs to do research at a Research University or Industry.
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