Tag: #culture

Communism, Chapter 7: The Long March through the Institutions

Posted on by wha01

In the 1930s in Italy, an imprisoned Communist, Antonia Gramsci, was writing his “prison papers” opining that the dismantling the key cultural institutions, including the family, was necessary before Communism could take hold. Rudi Dutschke, a German Neo-Marxist in the late 1960s, followed on with this theme declaring that revolution would not succeed by violent over-throw, but by subverting society through “a long march through the institutions of power;” education, media, civil service, and judiciary.

Continue Reading

Communism, Chapter 4: Cultural Revolution

Posted on by wha01

Groups of young people known as Red Guards struggled against authorities at all levels of society, setting up their own tribunals. It is estimated that 100,000s if not millions died. The Police turned a blind eye to the Red Guard beating bourgeois elements to death. Mao is quoted as saying,
“China is a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people.”

Continue Reading

It needn’t be Grimm. Western Folklore in Australia

Posted on by wha01

In 1854, the eminent folklorist Joseph Jacobs was born in Sydney, New South Wales, though his working life was spent abroad – predominantly in England and the U.S.A. He wished that English speaking children could read tales which had emerged from the folklore of the British Isles, rather than those of the continent made popular by Charles Perrault in the 17th century, and the Grimm Brothers in the first half of the 19th century. Jacobs lamented that Perrault’s genius displayed in Cinderella and Puss in Boots had ousted the English classics of Catskin and Childe Rowland. Likewise, Tom-Tit-Tot had given way to Grimm’s Rumpelstiltschen and The Three Sillies to Hänsel and Gretel.

Continue Reading

Foundations of Western Theatre

Posted on by wha01

The three Greek playwrights whose names echo down the ages are Aeschylus (Ai-skillus) 552‑456 B.C., Sophocles (Soffa-cleez) 496‑406 B.C. and Euripides (Uri-p-deez) 480‑406 B.C. Fewer than ten percent of their works have survived into the modern era. The 5th Century B.C. was the Greek classical age which saw a flourishing of art, philosophy, theatre, and […]

Continue Reading