I would like to start, by explaining why I named this issue The Ivory Tower. For those who don't know the idea behind the ivory tower, it is this thought that while regular life goes on in "the marketplace", philosophers, work and study in an ivory tower, high above it all, completely detached, and away from practicality. The idea that intellectuals, could never truly "know" because they're not in the thick of it. All the theorizing in the world could not substitute for living itself (perhaps the greatest experiment of all... perhaps not). It was a very valid critique of intellectuals at the time. There are many many points for and agaisnt the idea of the ivory tower, but that is not what I'm getting at.

My idea is, however unoriginal it may be (I don't really know), is that in an age where our "marketplaces" are indoors and airconditioned, and we don't even have to leave our bedrooms to contact the entire world, maybe there isn't a tower out there not made of ivory, in fact maybe that ivory has turned to gold. I decided to call this issue the Ivory Tower, because I don't think there is a true "ivory tower" anymore. While we can be certain, that not everybody is a philosopher, there is nobody who can't be (of course I never want to speak in absolutes there are exceptions to everything--an abosolute in and of itself).

With this being said, I think that sites like these are absolutely brilliant, and while I may not be interesting, or ground breaking, I insist on usng them, because not one voice should be spared in this choir of information and opinion. And so the crumbling of the ivory tower and the building of not the ivory, not the golden, but knowledge crafted city, is reflected in websites, magazines, books, TV. shows, and movies like this, and so I felt the title Ivory Tower was only filling.

Oh and never judge a book by its cover!
(If you're wondering why I threw that in there, it's because I can ;)