Sunday, October 2, 2011
review: society is broken
Today I went to hear Alexander McCall Smith speak at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, more because it was Alexander McCall Smith than for whatever the topic was. It turned out to be quite good, though -- "Society Is Broken." While he admitting to not exactly appearing the part of a "dangerous" presenter, he offered some pretty good critiques of modern, and in particular, British, society. The recent riots featured prominently, though he spoke of excessive alcohol consumption, the omnipresence of violence in entertainment and the dishonesty of the average citizen. It was a talk that, while I doubted was Christian, certainly shared some ideas along the lines of total depravity. I didn't get to, but I wanted to ask if he felt our society had always been broken and was now just broken in different ways than before. Regardless, it was a lovely intellectual afternoon at the Opera House.
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1 comment:
Sounds very interesting! I often wonder about whether we are better or worse than previous generations and eras. I usually come to the conclusionn that we are most likely the same level of whateverness as we always have been, it's just we hear about it a lot more now because of the media. At least I hope that's the case anyway.
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