... it is not the task of the philosopher to act as the Big Other who tells us about the world but rather to challenge our own ideological presuppositions. The philosopher, is more someone who criticizes than someone who tries to answer questions.

- Žižek

divided by a common language

over lunch earlier, an interesting topic came about trigerred by a malicious comment of a colleague to a colleague...

question: just when do we draw the line between "misuse of words", joke or abuse? which factors to consider when trying to communicate? seniority? authority? gender? culture? personality?

and then came a brilliant anecdote (dont know the reference though). UK and US are two nations divided by the English language as if to answer the previous question.

and then another question: does communication start with common language or the common need and want to communicate?

what can cinema do???

entertainment, information, mover?

i enjoy movies that make me think and also films that make me get away from "my world of work". last night, I watched The Constant Gardener and i found it as such a moving experience. The plot is actually about drug testing in Africa (Kenya, in this case). I may not be a learned "movie critic" but I can say that this one gave me a balance of information, entertainment as well as somehow encouraged me to think more about this issue. i think that the actors were great as well. though some of the "thriller aspects" of the movie would somehow be predictable...

in fact, the movie moved me to search about Drug testing and I e-mailed my friend who did a paper on Malaria and the MNCs just a few months ago...

reading mixed reviews of the movie, i still think its a good one.