2021 Year End Media Charts

Top Songs of 2021
Rank	Song	Artist	Plays
1	Happier Than Ever	Billie Eillish	111
2	Get Em' Up	Tim Montana	110
3	Magic	Kylie Minogue	109
4	Inaudible	Manchester Orchestra	108
5	Age of Machine	Greta Van Fleet	105
6	Driver's License	Olivia Rodrigo	104
7	Shivers	Ed Sheeran	99
8	Lovesick Girls	Blackpink	96
9	Halley's Comet	Billie Eillish	96
10	Bad Karma	Miley Cyrus, Joan Jett	94
11	Lamb's Wool	Foster the People	93
12	The Divine Chord	The Avalanches	92
13	High Note	Brothers Osborne	90
14	Monday Blues	Kylie Minogue	88
15	X	Bicep	87
16	Angels Like You	Miley Cyrus	83
17	Save Your Tears	The Weeknd	82
18	Muskrat Greene	Brothers Osborne	82
19	Billie Bossa Nova	Billie Eillish	79
20	Ice Cream	Blackpink, Selena Gomez	78
21	Heat Above	Greta Van Fleet	78
22	Wrecked	Imagine Dragons	76
23	Dance Floor Darling	Kylie Minogue	74
24	Shy Away	Twenty One Pilots	74
25	I'm Ready	John Legend	73
26	Black Lungs	Architects	72
27	Bluebird	Alessia Cara	72
28	The Song You've Been Waiting For	Coast Modern	70
29	We Never Have Sex Anymore	The Offspring	69
30	Dad Vibes	Limp Bizkit	68
31	Us Against the World	Zac Brown Band	68
32	Ain't Nice	Viagra Boys	66
33	Feet Don't Fail Me Now	Joy Crookes	65
34	Libertine	Architects	63
35	Tidal Wave	Coast Modern	62
36	Stardust Chords	Greta Van Fleet	61
37	Maybe You've Changed	Tash Sultana	61
38	High	Miley Cyrus	59
39	Shy Away	Twenty One Pilots	58
40	I Feel Alive	Viagra Boys	58
41	You Lose!	Magdalena Bay	57
42	Fine Wine	Kylie Minogue	57
43	Tonight	Katy J Pearson	56
44	Night Crawling	Miley Cyrus (feat. Billy Idol)	55
45	It's Ok	Imagine Dragons	55
46	Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land	Marina	54
47	Lemonade	Til Bronner	53
48	California	Chvrches	51
49	Safe From Heartbreak	Blue Weekend	50
50	My Life	Imagine Dragons	50
Top Albums
Rank	Album	Artist	Units (M)
1	Disco	Kylie Minogue	8.3
2	Happier Than Ever	Billie Eillish	7.5
3	The Battle at Garden's Gate	Greta Van Fleet	6.8
4	Plastic Hearts	Miley Cyrus	6.3
5	Skeletons	Brothers Osborne	6.2
6	For Those That Wish to Exist	Architects	4.8
7	=	Ed Sheeran	4.0
8	Going Mainstream	Coast Modern	3.8
9	The Album	Blackpink	3.6
10	Isles	Bicep	3.5
Top Books
Rank	Book	Author	Units (M)
1	The Midnight Library	Matt Haig	3.2
2	Cloud Cuckoo Land	Antony Doerr	2.5
3	Bewilderment	Richard Powers	2.2
4	Entangled	Merlin Sheldrake	2.0
5	The Four Winds	Kristin Hannah	1.9
6	The House in the Cerulean Sea	T.J. Klune	1.7
7	Atomic Habits	James Clear	1.4
8	The Man Who Caught the Storm	Brantley Hargrove	1.4
9	The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo	Taylor Jenkins Reid	1.3
10	The Rose Code	Kate Quinn	1.2
Rank	Movie		Units (M)
1	Dune		15.7
2	Soul		10.0
3	The Father		9.9
4	Raya and the Last Dragon		9.2
5	Nomadland		8.7
6	Greenland		8.6
7	Cruella		8.1
8	The Last Duel		8.0
9	Palm Springs		7.7
10	Free Guy		7.7

The Form of Beauty, Cave Dwellers

    The question on the Form of beauty is a difficult one. I'm inclined to believe that not all of us value wisdom, therefore we do not all ascend the ladder to immortality. Some remain at the bottom and are content to do so; those who find beauty in a single body or many; those seeking to prolong their body and soul by coupling with another, to create new generations of copies of themselves, which in itself is a quest for immortality. All other animals do this. It is only in a select few humans really that the ladder has been climbed, for most are not in a socioeconomic position to do so. A love of scientific knowledge and beauty itself - or the collective Oneness of all - can only be achieved by individuals and healthy societies, and they are usually only the wealthy or the spiritually advanced. Most people are content to stay in Plato's cave, blinded by the shadows that reinforce their limited worldviews, terrified of wandering around outside the cave for fear of discovering they were misguided. Plato himself acknowledge this, but other philosophers have not. He was incredibly wise to have foreseen humanities marriage to fantasy despite living in ancient times. We have the advantage of seeing history in its entirety, long after his revolutionary philosophy was born. I'm certain if he were alive today he would feel no different. Even in "healthy" democracies like ours, the vast majority are cave dwellers.

The Form of the Good, Holy Grail of Science

    "Science, pursued to its basic presuppositions, reveals a world with a moral and religious dimension." So thought Plato, whose Forms extended beyond material reality and into abstraction. Is the quest of science to find God? For centuries, religious men used science to discover the secrets of divinity, including Copernicus and newton. The antagonism of science and religion is a more recent invention, the reaction of a petty conflict between Galileo and the Church in the 17th century. The supreme form, the form of the good, would be the holy grail for scientists seeking a grand unified theory, or theory of everything. Plato foresaw the whole future of science with his brilliant theory. As scientists seek the truth of Forms with their senses and reason, believers in God know it by intuition. And that is why the highest Forms are intuitive, for they entangle far more objects than we are aware. I believe in time, science will reveal the impact consciousness has on reality, through testable experiments that do not always involve material things. Plato's profound intuition knew this centuries before science even made such huge advances in areas like astronomy, physics, biology, and chemistry. He is the true prophet of philosophy. Not only do his Forms predict the great adventure of science, but the power of monotheistic religion. When God saw his creation was good, he stole a word from Plato's book. So it was written, by men.

Effects of the First Globalization

 

            European expansion had a profound influence on Africa, parts of Asia, and the Americas.  As Portugal was the first state to gain footing in these lands- due to its convenient seafaring location (Brotton, ch. 4)- others followed suit to disrupt the advantage Portugal would have in acquiring valuable resources.  Portuguese expansion also created the incentive to use slave labor as a means of obtaining these resources at minimal cost.

            In the Americas, the Colombian Exchange created opportunities to introduce new products to Europe that had never been used before, including potatoes, tobacco, and vanilla (Traver, The Columbian Exchange).  Conversely, European delicacies could be introduced and traded to the Americas, including cows, citrus fruits, and bananas (Traver, the Colombian Exchange).  Unfortunately, this also introduced disease to the Americas, leading to a population decline of many indigenous peoples.  European disease assisted the Spanish in establishing a massive extension of their empire in the New World (Traver, Impact on the Americas).  The depletion of Mexica and Inca warriors made it easier for the Spanish to defeat them, making the retrieval of resources like silver and sugar to send back to Europe easier in return, particularly through the help of imported slave labor from Africa.  The Spanish were not alone in importing slave labor; as time went on, Portuguese, British, French, and Dutch colonizers used them to help export American resources to Europe as well.

            The effect of the First Globalization on Africa was damaging in a different sense.  The implementation of the Atlantic Slave Trade resulted in the deportation of millions of African people to become slaves in the New World and Europe (Discussion, week 8).  This development seemed to justify the cultural image that blacks were racially inferior, starting a long-term trend in racism against blacks that is still relevant in today’s world.  The Portuguese were the first nation-state to buy slaves from Africans, and other nations followed suit.

            The parts of Asia that the First Globalization involved were in the southern part of the continent: mostly India, Indonesia, and Polynesia.  The Portuguese were brutal in their implementation of the spice trade in India, which included a massacre in Calecut (H.E.J. Stanley).  Tactics like these, along with supreme navigational skills, were how the Portuguese were able to monopolize the spice trade in Asia (Brotton, ch. 4).  The demand for spices was high in Europe because of their value in medicine and cooking.  Pepper was imported to Europe from India; cinnamon from Sri Lanka; and nutmeg, mace, and cloves from Indonesia (Traver, Spices).  In the far east (Polynesia), the Spanish were the first to implement a global trading network by colonizing the Philippines, using Manila galleons to trade spices and silver across the world.  The Dutch also colonized Indonesia and some of the Polynesian islands. 

Importantly, most of the colonization that took place in America, Africa, and Asia involved attempts by missionaries to convert the local populations to Christianity.  The people in these territories were seen as barbarians who needed to be converted by the life-saving affirmations of their European faith.  This kind of ethnocentrism seemed to justify the taking of land and enslaving people for European conquerors.  As European states competed for land, resources, and strategic advantages, the native populations of these areas suffered tremendously.  We are still seeing the fallout from the First Globalization today, as most of the underdeveloped world includes these places.

Most states during the Renaissance followed the Portuguese model of expansion, which included long sea voyages, colonizing distant lands, and converting the local population to Christianity.  The Portuguese also monopolized the Indian Ocean, started the Atlantic slave trade, and threatened to claim all land in the Americas, which mobilized other European nations to swiftly compete.  Magellan, a Portuguese explorer, was the first to circumnavigate the globe, which could have spelled global dominance for them if not for the rising influence of Spain.  In fact, the only reason Spain was able to overcome Portugal was through a technicality that split the western hemisphere heavily in their favor.  It was agreed in the Treaty of Tordesillas that Portugal could not occupy lands to the west of a certain meridian, which is how Brazil became the only American nation that recognizes Portuguese heritage.  It’s fascinating to me how such a physically small state changed the world in world in such profound ways!