St. John's

You identify as "junior" ~ seems appropriate.
dgfcuk - 5.7.2009 - age: 36-49

In Milton's PARADISE LOST, Adam asks Michael the Archangel why it is that villains victimize others, and Michael answers that this among the affairs of humankind among which "The victims, in their own times, will also be villains." I perfectly agree with your characterization of Allen's pathetic adolustence. But why do you refer to his partners as "lovely young girls". Do you reduce the problem between young and old partners to a partnership of non-compossible corporeality? Do you reduce it to the juxtaposition of peachy skin against rotting flesh? All flesh rots. All the time. It's why we have digestive systems. I can find as much that is offensive in a young person as I can in a senior citizen, on many occasions more. And, I should add, this sort of pedophillia is now going through gender reversal augmentation, watch the television progam WEEDS in late season 4 and early 5, for example. If you do see the film, you will see, as always is the case fr Allen but so many others as well, that the youthful feminine aesthetic is inextricably entwined with moral authority as well. However, you'll see in the cracks something at least as repulsive as the male role performances. I know a professor who seduced one of his students when he was in his late 50's. She left her 20 year old boyfriend for him and he left his wife and teen children. Now they are apart. She is dating a 67 year old (her boss) and he has wandered between bankruptcy and even jail. I don't see either of these people as innocent. They damaged those to whom they were directly and indirectly responsible for the sake of their pleasure and they inevitably did the same to each other. You don't need to be an age to start doing that, and while it is forgivable in seven year olds, not so among "lovely young women" or "lovely young men". This may seem the ranbling of an arch-conservativist. Nothing about my own life would suggest that. I am just asking a question that Woody Allen has not been able to see beyond the walls of his expressive utilitarian commitments. Is there no useful role for restrain in this culture? And to you I would ask the same question with respect to the "lovely young women" that you seem to support. The title "Whatever Works" is a key to the film. It is a variant of "anything goes", do it till your satisfied. Are we all reduced to pleasure centers, and are body aesthetics to be the only source of aesthetics we can appreciate. It is no wonder this thread was inspired by a psychiatrist. For Freud, repression was the cornerstone of civilization. Freud also divides the human libido into id, ego, and superego channels of expression and experience. In Allen, we see the triumph of the Id. I am certainly no Freudian, but I would like to make a small plea for the superego or its variants in other forms. Is there no one who wants to take a stand with respect to the goodness of responsibility and restraint? The co-mingling of children and adults depri.
basilherringboneiii - 8.7.2009 - age: 13-17

Go forth with the torch that sets writing aflame! Let neither intelligent commentary nor attempts at intelligent commentary go unchecked on the internet! What kind of society would we have if people thought or tried to have thoughts about their experiences;let alone if they tried to write about it; for surely doing so must make them pseudo-intellectuals. Or perhaps only scientists are intellectuals? Take a trip through time: see if you can get Newton, Decartes, or even Galen to agree with you? No doubt they made you take at least one humanities course before you shuffled over to medical school. And more to the point, do you think there is not enough hubris in your note to make you a welcome guest in Pseuds Corner too?
gprl6105 - 8.7.2009 - age: 26-35

Try to remember that, after you cure cancer, your patient and you will still have to go home and live a life somewhere other than in the hospital. Rollo May says that human life is not an on or off state determined by the status of organs -- it is a condition that is determined by the meaning of involvment with others. Neither you nor I created English, for example. We got it from others. Similarly, it is in our relations with others that we become doctors and such. I watched my father die from cancer and I can tell you tha, cure or not cure, the illness he suffered was not reducible to the mass in his head. So please try to be a little less sarcastic in your assessment of the humanities. They are based on the assumption that living involves more than just being alive. I congratulate this reviewer for recognizing that living amongst others is well served by critically engaging in the process. His review of this film helps me to distance myself from its implicit values.
ethics4017 - 8.7.2009 - age: 1-12