Tide Clocks

Archive for September, 2006

How Ethical is the American Work Ethic?”The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.” -Hegel”None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” -Goethe The Universal Call of LibertyFreedom is a value held dear by people throughout history, across all cultures. Governments of all varieties promise it to their citizens, regardless of the actual policies they support. Men have died by the millions believing that they were struggling for it. In nations around the world,  great and small, flags are lifted and voices raised in tribute to it. Freedom has been described as the universal desire of the human spirit. But if freedom is so dear to the mind of man, we must expect that those among us who wish to dominate others for their own ends will be well aware of this. Rhetoric promising freedom and our almost instinctive tendency to respond to it have been always been a powerful tool used by tyrants and despots. Stalin, Hitler, and Mao spoke of freedom. In fact, even the gates of Auschwitz promised freedom, proclaiming “Work will set you free.” It is this aspect of the issue which my essay will focus on. The Master/Slave DialecticDrawing on diverse influences including the ancient Greek thinkers Heraclitus and Socrates, nineteenth-century philosopher G.W.F. Hegel popularized his concept of dialectics, which held that ideas and phenomena are inherently bound up with their opposites in such a way that the resolution of contradictions leads to continual qualitative progression. One of the dialectics which Hegel chose to place significant emphasis on was the master/slave relationship, which he saw as a significant challenge to the advancement of freedom.

Fighting Irish Begin Their 20th Season Since My Dad’s Passing in 1987Shortly after 8 p.m. in Atlanta, Georgia on September 2, another season of Notre Dame football began.This is a milestone season, at least for me. This is Notre Dame’s 20th season since my dad passed away on February 3, 1987. My dad did not attend Notre Dame, never even stepped foot on the campus. But like the tens of thousands of “Subway Alumni” who root for the team, he loved the Irish,  loved everything about them.I never asked my dad why he became a Notre Dame fan because we didn’t talk about many things, but it’s not hard to figure out. After all, when you grow up Irish and Catholic, you learn at a young age to worship at the altar of the Touchdown Jesus. Who else are you going to root for but Notre Dame? He passed on his love of Notre Dame to his eldest son.My dad was born in 1924, the same year Grantland Rice penned perhaps the most famous lead in the history of sports writing. On October 19, 1924, he wrote the following words in the New York Herald:”Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out on the green plain below.”Ah, they don’t write like that anymore. I get chills every time I read those words, the same way I get misty-eyed during the scene in the movie “Rudy”, when Rudy’s father walks into Notre Dame Stadium for the first time, takes his seat in the end zone section and proclaims, “this is the most beautiful site these eyes have ever seen.” Like Babe Ruth’s Yankees, Notre Dame achieved an almost larger-than-life persona in the 1920s, 30s and into the 40s. That certainly isn’t the case anymore, with the Irish having gone 18 years since their last national championship. I suspect a lot of people my dad’s age become Notre Dame fans because of all the winning when they were kids.

Observations from a BreakdownObservations from a Breakdown Tumbling down the Brazilian highway seems more foreign than being on the moon. Even the pedestrian overpasses seem to resemble the lunar landscapes of science fiction and Hollywood cinema. The domed walkways painted fluorescent green and yellow decorate the highway in Martin décor and the color combination is painfully bright next to the drab browns and grays of the favelas. The settlement of Rocinha is the largest and most renowned favela, with a population of around 150,000. Rocinha is so famous, in fact, that bus tours are offered on days when the resident drug lord isn’t in a bad mood or warring against rivals. Rocinha and the rest of the shantytowns are tiny feudal societies financed by drug sales and protected by violence. Garbage lines the mud-packed streets. Kids in dirty flip-flops play beside open sewers, the stench rising as the day’s heat builds. It is said that just off the main road, boys with guns lurk in the shadows, ready to question intruders and enforce the lord’s rule. Ten minutes outside of Salvador, the slums dominate the banks of the highway, and yet the landscape is somehow still lost to giant billboards for baby food and soaring high-rise apartments. Escalating crime has encouraged the wealthiest Brazilians to flee to these expensive apartment complexes, surrounding themselves with electronically controlled fences and 24-hour guarded patrols. The once gracious entries to the city’s skyscraper apartment buildings are now surrounded with elaborate gates and metal gratings to keep vagrants from camping on the steps. Despite the poverty, sprawling car dealerships also begin to dot the landscape. Honda and Fiat seem to have a strangle hold on the local market, and no Suburbans or Jeeps can be seen anywhere. The monstrous sport utility vehicles that crowd the highways and parking lots in the United States appear to be completely absent in Brazil. Even the occasional mini-van is unusually out of place, in danger of being overrun by the swarm of super compacts that buzz through the soggy morning traffic.