The world of the saga - the eternal battle between good and evil - infuses our world with ready-made solutions, but reality has a way of returning and reality is far too complex for the saga. 

And yesterday, September 11, had an ominous and foreboding ring to it - and it became, once again, a day of unsettling events and news. Anna Lindh, the Swedish foreign minister, had been stabbed to death. Once again, 17 years after the shooting of prime minister Olof Palme, a politician had been killed while trying to live like you and me - Anna Lindh while shopping in a department store, Olof Palme in a street after having been to the movies - with neither body guards nor security precautions and thus vulnerable to life, and death, like you and me.

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response (2) tagged: filed under: the Other :: in the absence of the Other

According to the unemployment agency artists can only be listed as artists if they’ve got a diploma from the Royal College of the Arts or something equivalent OR if they’ve made money on their art. Art is once again defined in terms of a commodity sanctioned by institutions. Culture becomes a commodity sanctioned by academia and those in charge of the money and this, we know, is the bourgeois way of doing art.

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response () tagged: filed under: the Other :: in the absence of the Other