I enjoy taking students there so that they can marvel at the lack of the Bill of Rights and the theoretical right of free speech on any street corner, on any subject imaginable. It is of course, theoretical. Freedom of expression and postmodern society collided on Saturday August 30, 1997. The present postmodern society promotes the notion that everything is image, and that most any price is worth the ride. Through the control of information and image, we are empowered to control what the world used to regard as Real and Rational.
Celebrity seems to superintend all other possibilities of being.
We are vampires in this culture. We feed on human tragedies. The blood drawn takes many forms, and the Paparazzi provide us the vehicles for nourishment. Academics, too, are vampiric in a sense. The discussions that I have with colleagues in every area of our discipline seem to continue to stress one ideology over another.