>Why do I love this video below? I love how it is so odd (from an American perspective): A famous French philosopher gives a lecture into which a young “revolutionary” storms, creates a scene (and a mess), makes some kind of protest statement, and then the philosopher responds. All along the audience watches and occasionally applauds. It’s like a piece of performance art staged for the chic intellectual cohort.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=2536229376237496553&hl=en&fs=true

The philosopher is Jacques Lacan. The year is 1972 (not really surprising).

Only in France is all I have to say. And yet, sometimes I wish I lived in a country that would take philosophy, and its philosophers, as seriously. On the other hand, for all his unintended humor, the young radical in this clip may be the more honest of the two.