Virtual war and repolitization in visual culture

This article discusses Andrew Hill's book Re-imagining the war on terror with a special attention to the unconscious mental dimension of the conflict. Clarifying this symbolic, signifying dimension can help us to traverse the fantasies that we are so easily trapped in. Thus it opens the way for introducing a moral and political position in the War on Terror and in visual culture in general.     

House organ

“A vast, depopulated coutry; a low density of automobiles, which are propelled by a type of gas with little sulphur; windy cities with no thermal inversions; a fairly recent genocide of dissident intellectuals and political activists; an even more recent economic collapse; a fragmented and quarrelsome left; a current government economic policy which assures stability at the price of decreased wagest less job security and increased unemployment — all these ingredients serve to suggest that red-green politics are not exactly booming in Argentina.“     

Ethical aspects of scientific progress

Ethics and science are much more closely connected than some people assume. Erroneous perceptions of the nature of ethics are the probable cause of this. Ethics is an intrinsic and productive component of scientific work, not some external or retrospective obstruction of “real” scientific research. The ethical component is positively influenced by a thorough knowledge of the discipline it belongs to. Science thrives in a climate of freedom, but this must not be used as an alibi to circumvent social responsibility and ethical concern. Ethical science has a direct bearing on science policy. Giving due attention to the ethical aspect of scientific work leads to several tangible results. It increases interdisciplinary openness, it promotes the communicability of science, and, ideally, it demonstrates the difference between knowledge and wisdom. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.