Paper 1: Defining the “West”: An orrery of cultural paradigms
Part 1: An attempt at tracing the historical roots of the postmodern humanists
In his very last interview to a reporter, Robert Frost would make the following statement: “I don’t take life very seriously. It’s hard to get into this world and hard to get out of it. And what’s in between doesn’t make much sense. If that sounds pessimistic, let it stand”. It is precisely such “in between” phase which may be said to constitute what André Malraux had referred to as the “human condition”. To understand the “West” – and to attempt to define it through the orrery of cultural paradigms that have come to delineate its history and identity – one would need to commence with that which apparently “doesn’t make much sense”, it being the “human condition”, and as that has been experienced by the so-called “Western” individual. Continue reading "Defining the “West”: An orrery of cultural paradigms"
