By the same token, the writer's role is not free from difficult duties. By definition he cannot put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it. Otherwise, he will be alone and deprived of his art. Not all the armies of tyranny with their millions of men will free him from his isolation, even and particularly if he falls into step with them. But the silence of an unknown prisoner, abandoned to humiliations at the other end of the world, is enough to draw the writer out of his exile, at least whenever, in the midst of the privileges of freedom, he manages not to forget that silence, and to transmit it in order to make it resound by means of his art.
None of us is great enough for such a task. But in all circumstances of life, in obscurity or temporary fame, cast in the irons of tyranny or for a time free to express himself, the writer can win the heart of a living community that will justify him, on the one condition that he will accept to the limit of his abilities the two tasks that constitute the greatness of his craft: the service of truth and the service of liberty. Because his task is to unite the greatest possible number of people, his art must not compromise with lies and servitude which, wherever they rule, breed solitude. Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, the nobility of our craft will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain: the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression.
Otto van Hemert, professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, spoke about the outlook for the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.
Serious Fun - how designers think today
What is intelligence?- James Flynn, Emeritus Professor of Political Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand
Hungary in the 21st Century
Muslim Life in America
In Defense of Globalization
Finding gratitude at Christmas
Psychologist Alex Wood talks about how gratitude could be the key to happiness and how our Christmas gifts can best generate gratitude.
A future direction for multilateral trade
Dollar Weakness, the Impossible Trinity, and Sovereign Wealth Funds
US Manufacturing Outlook 2008
Virginia Woolf and her servants
Michel Onfray: The Atheist Manifesto
The Apology of Socrates
Alzheimer's, testosterone and the ageing brain
Boosting levels of testosterone in the body can reduce levels of the protein beta amyloid in the brain, one of the key players in causing Alzheimer's disease, according to a recent breakthrough in Australian research.
Arthritis - advances in treatment
Applied imagination
Retired psychologist Val Yule from Melbourne talks about the power of imagination. 'Applied imagination is the ability to consider what may be possible in the real world, not only in fantasy'.
Science and religion
Oliver Sacks on the musical brain
Corals and crustaceans in distress
The march of psuedoscience
Who was Molyneux and what was his problem? He was an Irish physician of the eighteenth century interested in the psychology of sight and his problem was this: could a person born blind, who knew shapes only by feeling, recognize those shapes by sight if his sight were suddenly restored to him? In other words, how are our senses connected?
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