The current conflict between Israel and Lebanon is a continuation of the divide between Israel and the Palestinians. As Slavoj Zizek illustrated in regards to the controversy about caricatures of Muhammed, both Israel and the Arab world fight over issues of political nationalism that is expressed as religious positions. As one expands from the particular conflict that is portrayed as a clash of civilizations, one sees the contradictions of the West's influence on the region. Israel was founded with both the positive hope for a new society where the Jewish people could be safe, and the negative effects of colonialism. The West can react to the conflict by criticizing Israel's militarism divorced from any Jewish national character, as well as condemn Muslim acts of violence without denying the unique aspects of the culture in the Middle East, America, or Europe.

 
Posthegemony can be considered the situation of the recent era in time. It occurs as ideology declines, moves from conscious discourse to unconscious affect, and presents the multitude as the main subject of society. Instead of an economic determination and class division that is maintained by strict explanations on how the world works, posthegemony deals with power exercised within the internalized individual mind. Any way to deal with posthegemony must be based on the multitude as the organization of people who create ideas and other forms of immaterial production. It is the multitude that can create society, and can deal with the unconscious affect of control.

 
Here is a great site for fans of obscure cinema. It contains a listing and description of various movies from the 1970's that are very rare or very weird. It is also able to sell many of these movies on DVD so that people can see for themselves how strange movies can get, yet still be entertaining in their own unique way.

 
Here is a wonderful resource that documents Art Nouveau architecture throughout Europe. It has compiled a collection of pictures of buildings that are still standing. They are organized by country and city and show how this artform flourished from 1890 to 1920.

 
Modernity implies a universality that assimilates all of reality under certain standards in society and economics. However, modernity was a Western invention and ignores the identity of those who are marginalized and outside of the developed nations. Though freedom was introduced as an absolute, the conditons of that freedom is based on capitalism and Western democracy and is not as universal as it appears.