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David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is not just a great film, it is a nearly perfect one. Even better, it was recognized as such from the start by virtually everyone. The critics lionized it and continue to include it on their “best” lists. The movie business showered it with prizes. Bridge won seven Oscars, including best picture and best director. Audiences made it the biggest film of 1957 and a perennial favorite ever since. (more…)

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Note: These are notes for a lecture on Fight Club given on October 25, 2000 in an adult education course called “Philosophy on Film.” For a fuller interpretation of Fight Club, see Jef Costello’s “Fight Club as Holy Writ.”

What’s philosophical about Fight Club? Fight Club belongs alongside Network and Pulp Fiction in an End of History film festival, (more…)

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You’d rather see me in the pen
Than me and Lorenzo rollin’ in a Benz-o
Beat a police out of shape
And when I’m finished, bring the yellow tape
To tape off the scene of the slaughter
Still getting swole off bread and water
I don’t know if they fags or what
Search a nigga down, and grabbing his nuts
And on the other hand, without a gun, they can’t get none.

— N. W. A., “Fuck tha Police.” (more…)

Cerdic, the first English monarch, from an artistic depiction dating from 1611.

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Introduction

Language serves the purpose of providing us with a map of abstract reality. Therefore, political terminology serves to achieve the aim of politics, and that is, according to Carl Schmitt, the art of recognizing and neutralizing the enemy. In other words, it establishes a friend and foe dichotomy. (more…)