Quaint, my foot

Hmmm, I can actually read some random French scribbling on the wall in the computer room. It says "I want to eat with my money, not pay for a link and services in a cyber cafe. We are students!!! Not RICH"

Am I supposed to feel accomplished that some of the language is starting to make sense, or be mortified that after over 4 weeks of lessons, I still can't hold a conversation, only read graffiti?

Anyway, went to Bruges over the weekend, quite a pretty little town. A hundred thousand population, and half again that in tourists. Must be nice to be a tourist town. You don't actually need any skills or anything like that, just be pretty. Sounds like human society, actually.

Anyway, just realised that it isn't really all that small a town. I believe that the ancient Romans and Greeks generally thought that 50,000 people was the absolute limit for a city. Any larger and it would get unwieldy. So Bruges is actually probably larger than Athens was. Not so quaint after all, eh?

Professor Redfield was saying that the population of modern-day Evanston is about the same as ancient Athens, so where are the Sophocles and Socrates of Evanston? Personally, I think the question is misdirected. I don't think the problem is with a lack of talent and ability, but with a lack of channels. A play written two thousand years ago is far more impressive than one written today, simply because it is so old. We marvel that these ancient, ostensibly primitive peoples are so modern, when all we have to do to see the modern is to look around now.

Similarly, it was probably easier to stand out as a philosopher or natural scientist in ancient Greece than it is today. After all, the simple discoveries have been made, and the cutting edge today is beyond the comprehension of the average man. Evanston is probably fairly similar in the level of intelligence of the population to ancient Athens, but the brilliant have to be a lot more brilliant these days if they want to achieve immortality. I do not believe that Northwestern is bereft of brilliant people who, given the same conditions, could not approach the heights reached by Aristotle and Plato. It is simply that that has passed, and it has become increasingly difficult to plough ahead in the realm of human knowledge. I do not think it can be doubted that quantum physics is harder than figuring out the basics of trigonometry. I am also fairly certain that the average university professor today is far more educated, cultured and accomplished than Plato ever was.

I wonder if the modern academic would approve of me bashing their idols in order to defend them.