The Precariousness of Societies without Moralizing Gods
The answer to whether complex civilizations or moralizing gods came first has significant ramifications for how we address social ills today.
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The Precariousness of Societies without Moralizing Gods
The answer to whether complex civilizations or moralizing gods came first has significant ramifications for how we address social ills today.
Emotional Intelligence
Interoception Can Enhance the Depth of Our Emotions
Interoception offers us insights into “gut feelings,” revealing how bodily signals can guide emotion and cognition—to help us feel intensely.
Epistocracy: A Better Form of Democracy or Rule by Philosophers?
Consider an alternative political system which retains the same institutions of representative democracy but apportions power according to knowledge or competence.
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If It Looks Like A Duck and Quacks Like A Duck…Is It A Religion?
Critics of intersectionality now refer to it as the “social justice faith,” highlighting the religious zeal and dogmatism of its advocates. As religion retreats, its qualifications have widened, continuing the ideologically-motivated practice of redefining what constitutes a religion.
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A Revolution Built on Eye Contact
Cutting through the small talk and reviving a familiar ethos, Authentic Relating aims to supercharge the way we experience each other.
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Why Demoniac Forces Are The Best We Can Hope For
This isn’t about the salvation of the demoniac but an observation about the hope we can find in the demons which show up in our mundane lives.
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Let A Thousand Green New Deals Bloom
We don’t need a Green New Deal so much as many green new deals.
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Interoception Can Enhance the Depth of Our Emotions
Interoception offers us insights into “gut feelings,” revealing how bodily signals can guide emotion and cognition—to help us feel intensely.
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Honeybees and Zen During Ecological Collapse
Honeybees don’t only inform us of further ecological collapse but invite us into being more mindful: present and compassionate.
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Global WEIRDing Threatens Cognitive Diversity
Human cognitive diversity joins a number of other forms of diversity that are disappearing. Diversity of mammals and plants, of languages and cuisines. But the loss of cognitive diversity raises issues all its own.
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What Earthquakes Teach Us About Embracing Uncertainty
For natural disasters large enough to reshape society, Dr. Lucy Jones explains, “The best fit to the data is that it’s random. And we hate it. Random makes people really upset.” But such uncertainty doesn’t have to leave us feeling helpless—we should embrace the inherent chaos of the universe.
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‘Adversarial’ Humanities Fuel Our Outrage Culture
Literary theorists of the past half-century—who now dominate the humanities—encourage us to assume ill-intentions of one another. This contrasts with the ’empathetic’ humanities, which aim for more understanding and less judging in our daily lives.
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‘Schools of Character’ Demonstrate a Path to Education Reform
In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, a grieving parent becomes an education reformer, champions “Schools of Character.”
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Mary Poppins as the Bodhisattva Ideal
P.L. Travers, who hung out with British mystics and studied alongside a Zen Buddhist master, would have approved of the Mary Poppins sequel.
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‘Follow Your Passion’ Is Actually Good Advice (Sort Of)
Here are five recent research findings worth considering when weighing the wisdom of “follow your passion” or pursuing a calling in life.
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Anxiety Due to Absence of Exposure to Real Danger
To better understand how anxiety works in us, we have to see fear in the context where it evolved—with hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago.
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Engaging in Civil Arguments Is Effective Against Extremism
Philosophers are exemplars in disagreeing vehemently but civilly with others. Like them, using these 4 principles can help us have arguments that are effective against extremism.
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How ‘Silent Night’ Went from Humble Hymn to Holiday Staple
Translated into over 300 languages, it originates in a small Austrian village, having been written for a poverty-stricken and traumatized congregation.
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Christmas Truce: Raising Our White Flags with ‘Joyeux Noël’
The Christmas Truce of 1914 was the final happy memory some soldiers would have. Today, in our polarized culture, ‘Joyeux Noël’ reminds us to soften our social and political barriers.
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Stereotypes Are Like Sediment
It’s said that our actions are based on immediate intuitions, informed by accumulated stereotypes. Are we merely puppets of inherited ideologies?
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Ecstatic Experience: How the West Can Find Itself by Losing Control
In the West, we resist ecstatic experience, fearful of losing control—this hyper-rationalistic mindset excludes us from crucial paths to insight and connection. But there is a dark side to ecstasy.
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A Tough President and An Unsettled Nation
While the most violent mood in recent history settles over the nation, can we blame it on Donald Trump and his aspirations to be “tough?”
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Ishiguro Explores ‘Our Illusory Sense of Connection with the World’
Ishiguro has been praised for his unapologetic investigation of loss and hope, and the “inevitable sadness” inherent in his novels.
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Kierkegaard, Knausgaard, and the ‘Kingdom of God’
Karl Ove Knausgaard often uses religious language in his fiction—but as religion recedes, does he think literature can create ecstatic experience?
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