The AKIC Wuxi Sunday Edition

No! No! No!

Tony knows how to say "no!".  He has picked it up because his parents say it to him all the time.  Problem is, though, that he doesn't know what it means.

 

The Frankfurt School

The secret of happiness is gratitude.  Figure that out, and most Left Wing philosophies quickly appear fraudulent.

 

I was listening to a BBC podcast for a show called In Our Time.  It is hosted by Melvyn Bragg.  The topic for the show I was listening to was the Frankfurt School -- a group of Left Wing intellectuals who lived in between-war Germany, 1940s America, and then finally post-war Germany.

 

I try my best to make a coherent critique of what I heard.  But, it won't be easy because I don't think the ideas presented were coherent.  I will try to recap, as best I can, in no particular order, some of the silly ideas I heard.

 

This Frankfurt group couldn't understand why there wasn't a revolution in Germany as there had been in Russia in 1917.  They thought by the laws of history that a revolution in Germany was inevitable.  They didn't understand that what had happened in Russia was that a particularly thuggish group was able to walk into a power vacuum -- there were no masses revolting demanding Socialism.

 

This Frankfurt group, trying to understand why revolution never happened in Germany, took some notions from Marx and Freud to explain it.  I won't go into detail about the notions but the conclusions were that the masses were "obtuse".  They were too stupid and were being duped, and so they didn't know that they should have been more unhappy than they were.

The Frankfurt Group rationalized the fact that their personal behaviour (they all seem to benefit from the Capitalist system) contradicted their professed disregard of materialism by saying that the Capitalist system had so co-opted everyone that until there was a complete change, no one had to change.  Thus, they could escape the Nazi persecutions by going to an America which they hated.  Talk about your lack of gratitude!

And what was that they wanted to by properly happy and unhappy about?  Who can say?  Tripe like that show shows why I am correct in my belief that the BBC and CBC (Canada's BBC) need not be funded by taxpayers.

 

New Shoes

We received the first pair of shoes ordered for me via Internet yesterday.  The shoes are ugly -- black and gold with Houston Rocket like designs.  The shoes fit as is to be expected with all shoes I buy  -- one of the shoes fits fine, the other is a little tight.  They are size 47.

 

 Sports Car Marriage Procession?

It could very well have been a publicity stunt.  It could have been a real marriage procession -- I did see a camera man in one of the procession cars taking video (as you would see in more simple Chinese weddings).  But what I definitely saw was a procession of 20 very expensive sports cars -- Porsche's, Audi's, and Lamborghini's -- on Zhongshan Road Sunday Morning.  Most of them had just married signs on their bumpers.  The procession attracted much attention -- people took photos.  The procession had me marvel at the irony of seeing such conspicuous material display in a country that still calls itself a People's Republic.