Mario Vargas Llosa Says Notion Of Culture Has Withered In Princeton Speech

The Daily Princetonian:

Mario Vargas Llosa, the winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature and a visiting professor in the Latin American studies and creative writing programs, argued that culture has withered in modern-day society in a speech on Monday evening in Richardson Auditorium.

"In our time ... the notion of culture has extended so much that even though no one would explicitly admit it, it has withered," Vargas Llosa said. "It has become an elusive, multitudinous phantom, because no longer is anyone cultured if ... what we call culture has been depraved so that everyone can justifiably be believed to be so."

Read the whole story: The Daily Princetonian

Comments

[NoraHuffposter]

05:58 PM on 10/12/2010

"“Political correctness has convinced us that it is arrogant, dogmatic, colonialist and even racist to speak of superior and inferior cultures, and even of modern and primitive cultures,” he argued."

Spoken like a true rightwingnutjob. We shall be sure to remember that when we visit the Museum of Memory, although it doesn't reach far enough into the history of the slain in Peru. Perhaps we can remember those 'superior' cultures and their wanton slaughter of indigenous people.

Having said that, his books are truly fantastic.

[LaBrayne35]

01:45 PM on 10/12/2010

A "withered" sense of culture...exactly what socialism, communism, Marxism, fascism, liberalism etc., etc. produces. Loss of culture is the beginning of the end...exactly as designed by the above.

[formerroadie]

06:27 PM on 10/12/2010

The Republicans are the ones who are fighting "culture". Their hatred toward education and their need to keep English, Language, Anthropology, Sociology, Classics, etc profs in the low end of the salary range because they don't bring in the big bucks is exactly one of those conservative issues. As far as I have seen, conservatives have lost their capacity to make a logical argument, especially an extended one. Writing papers, learning how to put together argumentation, and knowing history and literature would help with that, but conservatives disparage anything that has to do with art/culture because they can't see dollar signs attached to it.

Lastly, please learn something about differences in political philosophies. Socialism is not Communism and Marxism is a philosophy, not a political structure. Fascism is a conservative form of government and liberalism is something you obviously don't understand.

[NotesFromME]

12:54 AM on 10/13/2010

Sorry, but teabaggerism takes the cake. "Where ignorance is bliss . . ."

[FPhoebe]

12:35 PM on 10/12/2010

Seriously, you guys spelled MariO wrong in the headline??

[aprohricht]

01:02 PM on 10/12/2010

Good call. I've found a couple editing mistakes lately. Maybe Huff post should bring us on as junior editors? Sounds like a dream job!

[FPhoebe]

01:10 PM on 10/12/2010

We'd make an editing dream team!