tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post5691651909994811880..comments2024-03-28T20:47:48.468-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: GUEST POST BY TONY COUTURERobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-57638015537952994242014-09-15T09:47:02.279-04:002014-09-15T09:47:02.279-04:00I think that Kropotkin or Tolstoy (or another famo...I think that Kropotkin or Tolstoy (or another famous writer!) witnessed some beheadings in France, and was overwhelmed by the spectacle of a large group of people gasping together as a body was beheaded and it then stood up from the guillotine and moved around in pain without being able to scream. Not sure if this is from The Great French Revolution or A Confession, but I think the writer describes it in his explanation of his anarcho-pacificism.<br /><br /> The ISIS videos are a jihadist answer to reality TV and our sickening cult of the almighty image. I think the power of the images comes from a combination of our bondage to the good and bad news that stirs our daily emotional cycles and our freedom to feed off the flow of information.......................Do I dare watch the beheading? I forced myself to watch an Al Qaida beheading as a professor teaching Philosophies of War and Peace, to see if I should use it in a class exercise and show it to university students with a proper warning to let them leave if they did not want to participate. I could not finish the short video (5 minutes), and thought no human is designed to "watch" this garbage, and actually watching it might damage your humanity by blinding you morally. Tony Couturehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05152011867765494204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-45117744813556052082014-09-14T21:47:53.432-04:002014-09-14T21:47:53.432-04:00I've been struck by the psychological power of...I've been struck by the psychological power of the beheadings. On the one hand, it ellicits comparisons with the middle ages or barbarism, on the other, it evokes the French revolution. This must feel very differently in France. Andrew Lionel Blaishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01976034095806583387noreply@blogger.com