An ancient myth tells of a poor young man who found a magical ring. The young man’s name was Gyges. He was a shepherd, responsible for tending his village’s sheep as they grazed in the summer meadows away in the hills. His job was lonely, poorly paid, and most of the time he smelled like […]
Are We Too Wicked for Freedom? [Good Life series] Read More »
As with sex and money — and most of the important matters in life — many silly things are said about power. Perhaps the granddaddy of those silly things is the oft-quoted phrase, Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is an important truth that Lord Acton’s phrase tries to capture. But taken literally
Um antigo mito fala de um jovem pobre que encontrou um anel mágico. Seu nome era Giges. Ele era um pastor, responsável por apascentar as ovelhas do vilarejo enquanto pastavam nas colinas. Seu trabalho era solitário, mal pago, e na maioria das vezes, ele cheirava a ovelha. Certo dia, em uma caverna, Giges encontrou um
Somos perversos demais para a liberdade? Read More »
Our polarized academic world, combining weak understandings of sexual bio-psychology with politics. I juxtapose this piece from The New York Times, “Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm,” with this report from Britain’s The Telegraph, “‘Paedophilia is natural and normal for males’ How some university academics make the case for paedophiles at summer conferences.”
Trigger Traumatists versus Paedophiles in Academia Read More »
Two related essays worth reading at the Library of Social Science site. Both take up the biologically-collectivist Organic Theory of Society and its recent applications to politics and public policy. Gerald V. O’Brien, Ph.D., “Social Justice Implications of the Organism Metaphor.” Abstract: “The denigration of marginalized groups is frequently supported through the widespread employment of
Two essays on the organic theory of society and its uses Read More »
This post lists 71 interesting facts about Tennessee Williams, in honor of the 71 years of his life. Item 19 is: “I don’t believe in individual guilt. I don’t think people are responsible for what they do. We are products of circumstances that determine what we do. That’s why I think capital punishment’s an outrage.”
Tennessee Williams on the death penalty Read More »
Is peace or war the natural state of man? Do men fight primarily over material possessions or over women? For decades anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon studied the Yanomamö, a remote tribe in South America, learning about their almost-constant warfare — and his findings put him in open conflict with academic anthropologists and the American Anthropological Association.
Ideological wars in anthropology Read More »
In my Contemporary European Philosophy course we discuss Marx and Engels’s The Communist Manifesto. One question we raised was why Marx and Engels rejected achieving socialism by democratic and reformist methods. Why the insistence upon violent revolution? Here’s Marx in an 1848 newspaper article: “there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies
Marx’s philosophy and the *necessity* of violent politics Read More »