A Progressive’s Take on Ron Chernow’s ‘Grant’
Individuals don’t make history but there are the “best of us” people, like Grant, who withstand the crushing pressures of their times.
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Society & Culture
Why D&D Is a Popular Form of Communal Therapy
Dungeons and Dragons, the popular tabletop role-playing game challenges players to improve their moral character, emotional intelligence, and social skills.
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Love in the Hands of Hate Groups: The Marketing of Bigotry
Hate groups have undertaken modern marketing practices to more effectively recruit—dressing up their message in more universal language.
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Populism Trumps Policy: The Veering Politics of Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders traffics in populist rhetoric, making muddled thinking about good intentions more important than sound policy.
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Transparency Is the End of Trust
Transparency might appear to be a morally upright aim but it is just another way of controlling human beings and hereby, rather paradoxically, undermines morality.
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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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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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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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‘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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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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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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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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Jung and Freud Feud: Is it Sex or the Collective Unconscious?
Once resembling the relationship between a devoted father and an admiring son, Freud and Jung split over the question of culture’s origins.
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Competition Is Bad for Families but Good for Societies
Local competition—including that among siblings or neighbors—stymies cooperation and social capital, whereas global competition fosters both.
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Loss of Indigenous Languages Limits Our Insights from Nature
Language loss can be considered as extreme as the extinction of a plant or an animal—regarding indigenous languages in particular.
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Saudade: Happy Melancholy, Nostalgia for What Is Absent
Portuguese speakers commonly boast that “saudade” is untranslatable. Does that mean certain emotion experiences can be unique to a particular culture?
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An Experience Is ‘Interesting’ but the World is Not
Examining the ways in which we use the word ‘interesting’ unlocks a key understanding about human existence and how we experience the world.
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‘Awakening the Soul’: One Man’s Challenge to the Post-truth World
A new book protests the postmodernist refutations of shared truth and grand narratives—we struggle because we lack story and soul.
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Free-range Parenting Has Protection in Utah, Many Battles Ahead
Free-range parenting gains momentum in Utah, but families nation-wide still face threats to their autonomy from intrusive governments.
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Infantilization of Western Culture: Adults No Longer Adult
College students aren’t the only ones embracing infantilization, but what happens when an entire society succumbs to childlike behavior?
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Shared Reality and Truth Are Losing Ground to Tribalism
People turn to tribalism for a sense of certainty, as trust in institutions and commitment to truth erode. Instead, we need to restore a shared reality which builds common ground, regardless of identity group.
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‘History of White People’ and Dealing with Race Theorists
Nell Irvin Painter’s book identifies some of the roots of the inequality we see today, which are based on the antiquated “science” of race theory. We can use the social construct of race to address social injustices, but what do we do with the mixed legacies of race theorists?
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LGBTQ…P? Polygamy in the Era of Marriage Equality
Same-sex marriage was legalized in 2015. Ever-individualized notions of love, sexuality, and gender identity broaden our definition of family—but will we make room for polygamy? Should we?
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Agape Restaurants Could Revive Toleration and Multiculturalism
Debates surrounding tribalism and bigotry abound, many focused on biased media or public policy. Agape Restaurants conceptualize food as a cultural force for realizing toleration and nurturing community—all while dining with strangers.
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Urban Youth Use Myths and Drums to Become Men
Drawing power from mythological stories and self-disclosure, this award-winning mentoring program transforms teens into community leaders.
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Funerals Are Vital Spaces for Emotional Learning
We dishonor a person’s memory and do ourselves a disservice when we don’t also acknowledge the dead person’s flaws, faults, or missteps—in other words, embrace their whole humanity. Whether we want it or not, funerals are spaces for emotional learning, not just grieving or reinforcing cultural norms.
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Unconditional Cash Transfers Can Fix Foreign Aid
Foreign aid in the form of conditional cash transfers between governments tends to be abused by corrupt regimes, and rarely makes it into the hands of those in need. UCTs are a way to bypass that, and reinforce personal freedom.
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Why Do We Think the Working Class is Less Intelligent?
Traditional methods of measuring IQ suggest that a correlation exists between intelligence and social class. This outdated view of intelligence, among other social and environmental factors, perpetuates a stigma and enlarges a widening intelligence gap.
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The 3 Faces of Political Incorrectness
There are three distinct types of anti-PC rebels. Two of them serve a valuable social function. The third is a menace and should be treated as such.
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How Sports Bridge Our Cultural Divisions
The collective joys and sorrows of sports offer a healthy outlet for our tribal natures, and give us a safer space in which we can bridge gaps pertaining to more divisive societal arenas.
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Elvish Has Been Spoken for Centuries in This Small Swedish Community
Experts estimate that one language goes extinct every 14 days. When a language dies, we lose history, culture, and a unique way of viewing the world.
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Ayn Rand in the Age of Anti-Intellectualism
Regardless how one may feel about Ayn Rand, her “philosophy,” or her generally unpleasant demeanor, she does comprehend at least one underpinning truth of our species.
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