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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (480266)

9/29/2021 3:40:07 PM

From: koan

Read Replies (4) | Respond to of 541149

I watch tons of movies, but not Hollywood, it has way too much drivel; as you point out, and as I have pointed out many times. I look around the world for the intelligent movies I can find and the world is full of them because the world is increasingly smarter.

I watch a lot of Asian movies, especially South Korea and Japan, as they are much more into philosophy, emotions and introspection, but all countries have their geniuses. Especially the French, Germans, and Nordic countries, which are also among the most educated.

E.g. Mr Sunshine on Netflix, about the turmoil in 1900 South Korea with the Americans, Russians, Japanese, and Chinese all vying for power is of academy ward caliber IMO. Super story and amazing cast of characters. Himalaya on Hulu, I have watched twice now over a period of time which is about a village high in Nepal that brings salt down in the fall on yaks to trade for grain and food, and is a generational film. So well done. The boy sees his first tree!

I have always preferred "foreign films" to Hollywood. And so many of them today are about the new generation of kids pushing against the traditional norms and mores and patriarchal societies e.g. "Saving Face" is one of my favorites about a lesbian couple in Taiwan? with Joan Chen and her daughter giving great performances and it is also light and funny, but pointed.

As far as Bertrand Russell, or Einstein being existentialists, both were without questions existentialists. Existentialism is not something one necessarily declares, it is a state of higher order thinking, an observation of reality.

The one specific thing about existentialism is that it puts essence before existence. This is because before existentialism, most people thought a "god" prescribed reality (i.e. existence precedes essence) , but the existentialists say no, each person initiates their own reality and that gives it essence e.g. there is NO god declaring what reality is.

I have read Russell's entire three thick books auto biography as well as several on Einstein and both were hard core atheists, and I know how they saw the world. They are also two of my heros.

Many if not most graduate students today at major universities I would bet are either agnostic or atheists BECAUSE they see that the god idea has no scientific bases at all. None.

Research shows every year the number of atheists increases and this, IMO, is the result of us getting smarter, seeing reality more clearly as guided by science.

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Have you seen many modern movies? The stuff meant for the masses are amazingly stupid. Just drivel. Violence, sex and stupid. And Russell was a logician and analytical philosopher. I have never seen him classed as an existentialist. Do you have a citation for that?