Par·al·lax -noun [par-uh-laks]
1. the apparent displacement of an observed object caused by a change in observational position.
Parallax
In “The Parallax Review” the word is used casually to describe the diverse opinions available for our review. Changes in our “observable positions” in relation to the opinions we each hold, whether because of gender, class, level of education, etc. are unique variables contributing to how each of us sees the world. This blog offers a forum for review where, hopefully, some of those “apparent displacements” caused by diverse viewpoints can be observed, where the individual can take the stock of each for themselves.
The phrase “The Parallax Review” spins-off of the literary publication “The Paris Review”, which seemed fitting since a substantial number of the posts here will be geared toward literature, along with politics, business, science/technology, culture and the arts.
It’s also a spin-off of contemporary philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s masterwork, “The Parallax View,” in which Žižek explores “the parallax gap” that exists between two objects, separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is seemingly possible, those points linked by an “impossible short circuit” of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Žižek attempts a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.
So too The Parallax Review attempts to rehabilitate our cultural and social dialogues by arriving at truth (or at least trying) through the exchange of logical arguments.
The Parallax Review is the inquiring mind, lost in thought, through the weather of words.
