 Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: hiphoplinguistics  |
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| Article Title :: Hip-Hop Love Stories and the Construction of Socially Acceptable Urban Identities |
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| Hip-Hop has historically existed as a male-dominated industry. Being a reflection of urban life and struggle, past Hip-Hop artists have been forced to maintain a certain level of masculinity in order to be accepted by their urban communities. Old school rappers who talked about love were often viewed as soft or corny. Because of this perception, the existence of love in Hip-Hop is a fairly new concept.
As the movement has gained support and recognition throughout the world, love has become an increasingly common theme in Hip-Hop music and poetry. However, the taboo still exists. Even today, Hip-Hop artists and poets present their love stories in a manner that allows them to main (read full article) |
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| Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: Sam Vaknin |
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| Article Title :: The Columnist in the Mousetrap |
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| I am a voracious reader of the most convoluted and lexiphanic texts - yet, there is one author I prefer to most. She gives me the greatest pleasure and leaves me tranquil and craving for more when I am through devouring one of her countless tomes. A philosopher of the mundane, a scholar of death, an exquisite chronicler of decay and decadence - she is Dame Agatha Christie. I spend as much time wondering what so mesmerizes me in her pulp fiction as I do trying to decipher her deliciously contorted stratagems.
First, there is the claustrophobia. Modernity revolves around the rapid depletion of our personal spaces - from pastures and manors to cubicles and studio apartments. Christ (read full article) |
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| Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: Laurent Grenier |
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| Article Title :: Ignorance and Fantasy |
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| Are beliefs not often the children of ignorance and fantasy? Consider the heavenly view of the world that young souls entertain at the height of their innocence, when their youth has been surrounded by love and filled with happiness. Hear their laughter. Dreams expand in a vacuity of knowledge like a laughing gas and induce the blindest, the purest joy.
Ignorance is bliss, as they say, because it spares us the mental restraints associated with knowledge (which reveals the limits of reality and hence the impossibility of our fantasies). It is the ultimate playground where the mind can build castles in the air, create a wonderland, and live delightedly in this kingdom of reverie. (read full article) |
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| Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: Laurent Grenier |
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| Article Title :: Violence |
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| Flashes of memory stream into my consciousness. They take me back thirty years plus. I was a boy then, a newcomer to a poor and tough neighborhood. My parents, of moderate means and daring to a fault, had decided to move there after my father had accepted an editing job in the federal government. They had taken a lease on a low-rent brick house, which was also run-down, covered in filth, and littered with trash. I do not mince my words: Previous tenants had been pigs that got along with bugs and rats.
“The house has potential,” my mother had said to reassure me, seeing that I was aghast at its sordid aspects. Its one redeeming feature, besides its solid construction, was (read full article) |
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| Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: Laurent Grenier |
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| Article Title :: Love and Courage |
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| To many work is not a gratifying opportunity to do good, but a necessary evil they would gladly forgo if they won or inherited a fortune. It is just a livelihood, a vital drudgery. Its meaning is the paycheck and the value it has in terms of service to their community is indifferent or very subordinate.
Their calculating and uncaring attitude is recognizable. Whereas people who heartily act in the interest of others are gracious, they are perfunctory. At best, in establishments that demand courtesy from employees, their behavior is irreproachable, albeit artificial. “Can I be of assistance? Here you are. Will there be anything else? You’re welcome” – no genuine a (read full article) |
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| Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: Laurent Grenier |
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| Article Title :: Greatness |
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| When I was a nineteen-year-old high school student and budding poet – two years after my diving accident – many factors adversely affected my creativity. My trips in a special bus to school and back home, my courses, and my assignments, though I was spared a lot of writing and was mostly tested orally, all this was time-consuming. More often than not, my obligation to study took priority over my desire to compose poetry.
To tell the truth, I had plenty of free time. That I spent much of it uncreatively showed evidence of frivolousness, laziness, and cowardliness. I usually preferred to take my mind off things, or to daydream, rather than to express myself through poems. (read full article) |
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| Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: Laurent Grenier |
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| Article Title :: Honesty |
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| Those who pride themselves on their honesty should also concern themselves with this principle: The effectiveness of honesty depends on a person's willingness to face the truth, which may conflict with this person's desires and provoke denial.
In such a case, how can one promote this willingness, despite this conflict? The answer to this question could prove useful to anyone who seeks to be effectively honest with people in denial. Ultimately, it could benefit these people, whose denial is contrary to their best interest. I go on the assumption that truth, or the conformity of thought to reality, is the sine qua non of vital efficacy. Health, pleasure, successful careers, and ha (read full article) |
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| Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: Laurent Grenier |
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| Article Title :: The Essence of Freedom |
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| Life is too hard and too risky in the eyes of many. By contrast, others are such proponents of a virile existence, demanding great courage and giving great pride, that they are ready to leave the coziness of their home to scale Mount Everest and breast the elements for the sheer joy of conquering the summit. Whatever the perspective, the nature of things remains unchanged. There are rules, necessities and duties, and limits, possibilities and impossibilities. Until doom, one can accept them and make the best of them, much to oneÂ’s pleasure and honor, or one can do the opposite and suffer the consequences. The choice between these two options is the very essence of freedom. Personally, I (read full article) |
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| Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: Laurent Grenier |
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| Article Title :: The Capacity for Happiness and Respectability |
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| Humans are liable to experience a variety of afflictions, but they are commonly endowed with a capacity for happiness and respectability. There is no guarantee, however, that they will exercise this capacity at all times and to the maximum, whatever happens. Depression and shame remain a possibility, which increases with the severity of their afflictions and the difficulty of living up to the values that are necessary for their happiness and respectability: courage, efficiency, wisdom, and nobility.
Living up to these values is never easy, even under extremely favorable circumstances. It requires an effort of will. To make or not to make this effort is the question, central to t (read full article) |
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| Category :: Humanities Articles |
Author :: Laurent Grenier |
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| Article Title :: Happiness |
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| Having said this, even this sort of happiness is a product of positive thinking and positive action, with good fortune lending a helping hand. In short, it is a product of will in relatively favorable circumstances. But isn't it peculiar to imply that happiness can be of one sort or another? Are there not simply happiness and unhappiness? I think not. The sort of happiness that the sage talks about is compatible with misfortune. It is preeminently a doing from within – while without, the only prerequisite for it is that the sage be alive and capable of thought. It is a feeling of serenity, of being at peace with his situation and his conscience, as a well-adjusted and fully committed ser (read full article) |
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