Aldous Huxley Warns Against Dictatorship in America

in History, Literature | March 29th, 2010

Warn­ings of dic­ta­tor­ship are noth­ing new in Amer­i­ca. We have them now, and we’ve had them before, and we’ve even had them come from the intel­li­gentsia at times. Above, Aldous Hux­ley, author of Brave New World (get free text here), talks with Mike Wal­lace in 1958 — smack in the mid­dle of the Cold War — about the major threats to Amer­i­can free­dom. Who were the vil­lains? Not elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives who passed laws with a major­i­ty in Con­gress. No, it was a dif­fer­ent set of char­ac­ters: over­pop­u­la­tion, bureau­cra­cy, pro­pa­gan­da, drugs, adver­tis­ing, and, yes, tele­vi­sion. Part 1 of the inter­view appears above, and you can con­tin­ue with Part 2, and Part 3. For more inter­views from The Mike Wal­lace Inter­view (1957–1960), please revis­it our ear­li­er piece. You’ll find some more thought pro­vok­ing inter­views there (and lots of cig­a­rette ped­dling).

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Marlon Brando Opens Up to Tennessee Williams

in Film, Literature, Theatre | March 27th, 2010

I had no idea that Mar­lon Bran­do was much of a writer, but this 1955 let­ter to Ten­nessee Williams is superb. Per­haps I just can’t help iden­ti­fy­ing him with Stan­ley Kowal­s­ki of the “Napoleon­ic code,” Stel­la!” and “Hoity-toity, describ­in’ me like a ape.” Espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing is his atti­tude towards suc­cess. (Note some of the lan­guage is a lit­tle strong/racy):

I have been afraid for you some­times, because suc­cess sings a dead­ly lul­la­by to most peo­ple. Suc­cess is a real and sub­tle whore, who would like noth­ing bet­ter than to catch you sleep­ing and bite your cock off. You have been as brave as any­body I’ve known, and it is com­fort­ing to think about it. You prob­a­bly don’t think of your­self as brave because nobody who real­ly has courage does, but I know you are and I get food from that.

This pas­sage echoes Williams’ own views on suc­cess, espe­cial­ly his beau­ti­ful (and iron­i­cal­ly inspir­ing) essay On a Street­car Named Suc­cess, writ­ten eight years ear­li­er:

It is nev­er alto­geth­er too late, unless you embrace the Bitch God­dess, as William James called her, with both arms and find in her smoth­er­ing caress­es exact­ly what the home­sick lit­tle boy in you always want­ed, absolute pro­tec­tion and utter effort­less­ness. Secu­ri­ty is a kind of death, I think, and it can come to you in a storm of roy­al­ty checks beside a kid­ney-shaped pool in Bev­er­ly Hills or any­where at all that is removed from the con­di­tions that made you an artist, if that’s what you are or were intend­ed to be. Ask any­one who has expe­ri­enced the kind of suc­cess I am talk­ing about–What good is it? Per­haps to get an hon­est answer you will have to give him a shot of truth-serum but the word he will final­ly groan is unprint­able in gen­teel pub­li­ca­tions.

You’ll find the rest of Bran­do’s let­ter (includ­ing an image of the orig­i­nal) — which includes reflec­tions on actors Anna Mag­nani and Burt Lan­cast­er — here.

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

YouTube EDU Turns One Today

in Education, Google, Online Courses | March 25th, 2010

Just want­ed to send out a quick birth­day wish to YouTube EDU, which cel­e­brates its first birth­day today. The site now fea­tures over 65,000 aca­d­e­m­ic videos and 350 full cours­es, many com­ing from uni­ver­si­ties like Stan­ford, Yale, and MIT. My pro­gram at Stan­ford has hap­pi­ly con­tributed 12 cours­es to the col­lec­tion (find them here), and they’ve been down­loaded by thou­sands of view­ers across the world. It’s all very grat­i­fy­ing.

If you want to learn more about YouTube EDU, you can read this piece I post­ed short­ly after it launched. But, bet­ter yet, you should give the site itself a vis­it. And, to the folks at YouTube, keep up the good work!

PS If you’re look­ing for more intel­li­gent con­tent on YouTube, you should peruse our page that high­lights the smartest video chan­nels on the Tube. NASA, The New York Times, The New York­er, Google Talks, TED Talks — they’re all list­ed here.

Sam Harris: Science Can Answer Moral Questions

in Philosophy, Religion, Science | March 24th, 2010

What’s good, and what’s evil? Tra­di­tion­al­ly, reli­gion and phi­los­o­phy have answered these ques­tions, push­ing sci­ence to the side, ask­ing it to stick to the world of nat­ur­al laws and know­able facts. But Sam Har­ris wants to change things. At TED, he’s argu­ing that sci­ence (par­tic­u­lar­ly neu­ro­science) can address moral ques­tions pre­cise­ly because these ques­tions fall into the world of know­able facts. And, even bet­ter, sci­ence can pro­vide defin­i­tive, high­ly objec­tive answers to such ques­tions. Just as there are sci­en­tif­ic answers to all ques­tions in physics, so there are clear answers in the moral realm. This applies, for exam­ple, to whether chil­dren should be sub­ject­ed to cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, or how soci­ety deals with very mean­ing­ful gen­der ques­tions. (Things get a lit­tle emo­tion­al on this top­ic at about 11 min­utes in.) The upshot is that Har­ris isn’t buy­ing a rad­i­cal­ly rel­a­tivist posi­tion on moral­i­ty, and this will dis­ap­point many post-mod­ernists. The Enlight­en­ment project is alive and well, ready to make its come­back.

Update: You can find a rebut­tal to Harris’s the­sis from physi­cist Sean Car­roll here. Thanks Mike for point­ing that out.

via RichardDawkins.net

Tim O’Reilly: The University as an Open iPhone Platform

in Education, Technology | March 24th, 2010

Both the iPhone and Face­book took off when they opened them­selves up to out­side devel­op­ers, let­ting them inno­vate and build thou­sands of unfore­seen apps for users. In the video above, tech guru Tim O’Reil­ly asks how uni­ver­si­ties can do the same. How can they let devel­op­ers (in this case, the pro­fes­sors) inno­vate and dis­trib­ute con­tent to users (stu­dents) in new and effi­cient ways? There are more ques­tions than answers here, but if you want to imag­ine the uni­ver­si­ty in the 21st cen­tu­ry, these are the ques­tions you can’t avoid.

via @drszucker via Beth Har­ris, both at smARThis­to­ry.

Harvard Comes to iTunes U

in Apple, Education, Harvard | March 23rd, 2010

Since 2007, Apple has offered uni­ver­si­ties around the world a way to dis­trib­ute edu­ca­tion­al media via iTunes U. Fast for­ward to 2010, Har­vard has now set up its own iTunes U sec­tion, with more than 200 audio and video tracks cov­er­ing every­thing from the Har­vard Kuum­ba Singers to a course on Jus­tice with promi­nent polit­i­cal philoso­pher Michael Sandel. Oth­er high­lights include:

• Brief (one to two-minute) high-def­i­n­i­tion video tours of hard-to-see astro­nom­i­cal objects observed by the Chan­dra X‑ray Obser­va­to­ry — we’re talk­ing explod­ed stars and black holes. High­lights include: Galac­tic Cen­ter in 60 Sec­onds (there’s a black hole at the cen­ter of the Milky Way), Chan­dra’s Extra­or­di­nary Uni­verse (an overview of the Chan­dra project), and Best of the Beau­ti­ful Uni­verse (the pic­tures of galaxy clus­ters are stun­ning).
• A Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press pod­cast fea­tur­ing 10–20 minute long inter­views with authors of such titles as: Nam­ing Infin­i­ty: A True Sto­ry of Reli­gious Mys­ti­cism and Math­e­mat­i­cal Cre­ativ­i­ty; Hys­ter­i­cal Men: The Hid­den His­to­ry of Male Ner­vous Ill­ness; and The Anno­tat­ed Wind in the Wil­lows.
• Videos of John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum speech­es and pan­el dis­cus­sions fea­tur­ing promi­nent lead­ers, aca­d­e­mics, and artists. As a fol­low-up to Michael Sandel’s Jus­tice course linked to above, there’s a pan­el dis­cus­sion with him and Niall Fer­gu­son, Lani Guinier, and Peg­gy Noo­nan: JUSTICE: What’s the Right Thing to Do? There’s also a con­ver­sa­tion with Dustin Lance Black, screen­writer of the movie MILK.

For free cours­es from Har­vard and oth­er fine insti­tu­tions, vis­it our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

via Mac­World

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

The Essential Kurosawa

in Film | March 23rd, 2010

Aki­ra Kuro­sawa, the great Japan­ese direc­tor, would have turned 100 today. And to mark the occa­sion, The Guardian has assem­bled a handy guide to ten key Kuro­sawa movies. Above, we high­light a clip from Sev­en Samu­rai (1954), an enor­mous­ly influ­en­tial film both in Japan and abroad. The Guardian guide cel­e­brates this and nine oth­er major Kuro­sawa films, so it’s def­i­nite­ly worth a vis­it. Mean­while, you’ll con­ve­nient­ly find two impor­tant Kuro­sawa works (Rashomon and Throne of Blood) list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Movies.

Our Thirsty World: A Free National Geographic Download

in Life | March 23rd, 2010

A lit­tle belat­ed some­thing for World Water Day (yes­ter­day): Nation­al Geo­graph­ic has released a spe­cial issue that delves into the chal­lenges fac­ing our most essen­tial nat­ur­al resource. “Water: Our Thirsty World” will be soon avail­able at news­stands every­where. But, right now, you can now down­load a free inter­ac­tive ver­sion that includes all of the print mag­a­zine con­tent, plus lots of extra online good­ies. The free down­load requires reg­is­tra­tion and is avail­able only until April 2.

A great find by Maria Popo­va aka @brainpicker

For a Tiny Instant, Physicists Broke a Law of Nature

in Physics | March 22nd, 2010

An intrigu­ing bit of news from the Yale Bul­letin. It begins:

For a brief instant, it appears, sci­en­tists at Brook haven Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry on Long Island recent­ly dis­cov­ered a law of nature had been bro­ken.

Action still result­ed in an equal and oppo­site reac­tion, grav­i­ty kept the Earth cir­cling the Sun, and con­ser­va­tion of ener­gy remained intact. But for the tini­est frac­tion of a sec­ond at the Rel­a­tivis­tic Heavy Ion Col­lid­er (RHIC), physi­cists cre­at­ed a sym­me­try-break­ing bub­ble of space where par­i­ty no longer exist­ed.

You can read more about what went down here. And, if you want to brush up your physics, head over to the Physics sec­tion of our Free Online Course col­lec­tion. There you’ll find free physics cours­es from Yale, Stan­ford, MIT and oth­er fine insti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing.

Nature by Numbers: Short Film Captures the Geometrical & Mathematical Formulas That Reveal Themselves in Nature

in Film, Math | March 21st, 2010

For cen­turies, artists and archi­tects have used some well-known geo­met­ri­cal and math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­las to guide their work: The Fibonac­ci Series and Spi­ral, The Gold­en and Angle Ratios, The Delauney Tri­an­gu­la­tion and Voronoi Tes­sel­la­tions, etc. These for­mu­las have a real­i­ty beyond the minds of math­e­mati­cians. They present them­selves in nature, and that’s what a Span­ish film­mak­er, Cristóbal Vila, want­ed to cap­ture with this short film, Nature by Num­bers. You can learn more about the movie at the film­mak­er’s web site, and also find his lat­est film here: Inspi­ra­tions: A Short Film Cel­e­brat­ing the Math­e­mat­i­cal Art of M.C. Esch­er.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!