Recently I read both Goethe’s and Marlowe’s Faust plays–the Faust leg­end has been a major influ­ence on many gen­er­a­tions of com­posers and authors. I found them exceed­ingly dull, except that the Mar­lowe made me think about chang­ing Eng­lish syn­tax in rela­tion to the other ger­manic lan­guages. And in the case of Goethe, I was curi­ous about the psy­chol­ogy that would lead some­one to tor­ment over this story for one’s entire career.

What they made me real­ize though, is that ideas of the value and endurance of art are tied to our world views. Con­tinue read­ing “Faust and Sub-Prime Mortgages” »