The fundamentalist chokehold on American politics seeks to destroy the religious and cultural plurality on which the country, and the Declaration of Independence, was based. These theological divisions – which pit believers against non-believers, and those who believe correctly against those who don’t – are a major contributor to America’s sharply divided politics. When someone …
The Fundamentalist Christian Chokehold On America Read More »
From Sarah Lamb’s insightful essay: I hate self-help books. Well, I do now. I hate them because they tell us how we should be. They tell us, if we only did things this way—the author’s way—then we will be happy and truly understand what it means to love ourselves. The day I gave up reading …
The author of Searching for John Hughes offers us an honest, unflinching look at his struggles with isolation. Jason Diamond Oprah.com I’ve dealt with depression for most of my life. But it had been a long, long time since I’d been truly isolated, nobody there when I got home or waiting in the next room. …
What It Took Me Far Too Long To Realize About Loneliness Read More »
Out of all great transformations we are going through, from climate change to artificial intelligence to gene editing, what are the most consequential we are about to witness? Martin Rees: It depends on what time scale we are thinking about. In the next 10 or 20 years, I would say it’s the rapid development in …
Martin Rees: We Are Living Through A Political And Scientific Transformation Read More »
Steve Bannon’s love of Deconstructionism has got me thinking that a good dose of traditional sign theory, which dominated Western culture for centuries, would be in order, even if people are not believers. It argues that we can make sense of texts by careful readings, believing that they–and by extension, our lives–have meaning. When I …
Bannon, Deconstruction, v. meaningful readings of texts and life Read More »
As the year winds to a close, gifts and giving are foremost in many people’s minds. And now, two new neuroscience studies suggest that our brains prompt us to act more like Santa than Scrooge. In one study, researchers scanned participants’ brains to identify connections between generous behavior and brain activity. In the other, scientists …
Our Brains Are Guided More By Empathy Than Selfishness Read More »