71 Posts Found

Three primary reasons people are attracted to conspiracy theories:

1. Conspiracy theories make us feel special. According to Tom Nichols, “[Conspiracy] theories also appeal to a strong streak of narcissism: there are people who would choose to believe in complicated nonsense rather than accept that their own circumstances are incomprehensible, the result of issues beyond their intellectual capacity to understand, or even their own fault.” In other

… [ Read more ]

Author: Joe Forrest | Source: Instrument of Mercy (May 7, 2020) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Excerpts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

In his new book, historian Rutger Bregman argues that people are actually fundamentally good.

Author: Mike Jakeman | Source: strategy+business (June 12, 2020) | Subjects: Excerpts, Life & Society, Sociology | Anthropology

Years before Walter Lippmann explored stereotypes and the psychology of prejudice, rooted in the disquieting fact that “we do not first see, and then define, [but] define first and then see,” and decades before Hannah Arendt observed that “society has discovered discrimination as the great social weapon by which one may kill men without any bloodshed” before she … [ Read more ]

Authors: Elsie Clews Parsons, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (March 11, 2020) | Subjects: Excerpts, Immigration, Life & Society, Power, Sociology | Anthropology

There are three major styles of attachment: secure, anxious and avoidant. […] A person’s attachment style is largely influenced by whether or not they bonded successfully with their primary caregivers – parents or otherwise – in childhood, though more recent research suggests that genes, and our romantic history as adults, may also be influential factors. Analysis of studies in North America and Europe found that … [ Read more ]

Author: Elle Hunt | Source: The Guardian (November 5, 2019) | Subjects: Character, Excerpts, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

A 2014 article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on “motive attribution asymmetry” — the assumption that your ideology is based in love, while your opponent’s is based in hate — suggests an answer. The researchers found that the average Republican and the average Democrat today suffer from a level of motive attribution asymmetry that is comparable with that of Palestinians and … [ Read more ]

Author: Arthur C. Brooks | Source: The New York Times (March 2, 2019) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

A new book argues that the emotion happens in “micro-moments of positivity resonance.”

Author: Emily Esfahani Smith | Source: The Atlantic (January 24, 2013) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Love, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

I had a Powerpoint presentation forwarded to me with the following, which is supposedly what The Dalai Lama has to say on the millennium:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:
   • Respect for self
   • Respect for others
   • Responsibility for all your actions
4. Remember that not getting what you want

… [ Read more ]

Author: Dalai Lama | Subjects: Inspiration, Life & Society, Wisdom

Why is crime rising in so many American cities? The answer implicates one of the most celebrated antipoverty programs of recent decades.

Author: Hanna Rosin | Source: The Atlantic (July2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Demographics, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

Frances Hesselbein talks about the potential virtues of mandatory public service.

Author: Frances Hesselbein | Source: Leader to Leader (Winter2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

The threads of friendship knows no end.
I came for knowledge, I found instead soul friends.
In my life’s unexpected crossroads, our roads converged
And in converging, I was forever changed.
And though we must part
For different dreams view different ends,
I will always cherish and retell the tale
When strangers met, and yet…
Their hearts listened.
And like children, their bond endured,
long past their march of parting.

Our roads may not converge again,
But … [ Read more ]

Author: Emmanuel Matuco | Source: Harvard Business Review (HBR) (April2009) | Subjects: Family & Friends, Inspiration, Poetry

Wherever there’s a debate over gay marriage, free speech, or even smoking in public places, the arguments John Stuart Mill made in On Liberty are still in the thick of the action.

Author: Christopher Clausen | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Spring2009) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Philosophy, Politics & Public Policy

America’s enduring love affair with big spending is fetching up against some unromantic realities. But a lifelong saver assures us that there are worse fates than socking it away for a rainy day.

Author: Daniel Akst | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Summer2009) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Consumerism, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, Life & Society

What is the essential dividing line between human beings around the world? The one between the haves and the have-nots? East and west, rural and urban, secular and religious? Or maybe globalists and nationalists – a split purported to explain Putin, Brexit and the rise of Trump? These divisions are all significant, but none provide a consistent way of understanding differences observed from antiquity to … [ Read more ]

Author: Michele Gelfand | Source: The Guardian (September 17, 2018) | Subjects: Culture, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior

It’s been said that the four most expensive words in the world are: ‘This time it’s different.’

[…]‌

One of the things that happens in economic good times – a very clear lesson from history which is repeatedly ignored – is that money gets too cheap. Too much credit enters the system and there is too much money looking for investment opportunities. […] it is an iron … [ Read more ]

Author: John Lanchester | Source: London Review of Books (July 5, 2018) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

Conservatism, as Roger Scruton reminds us, was founded during the 18th-century Enlightenment. In France, Britain and the American colonies, Enlightenment thinkers were throwing off monarchic power and seeking to build an order based on reason and consent of the governed. Society is best seen as a social contract, these Enlightenment thinkers said. Free individuals get together and contract with one another to create order.

Conservatives said … [ Read more ]

Author: David Brooks | Source: The New York Times (June 25, 2018) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

The rapid expansion of relief efforts since the end of the Cold War has produced a surprising result: a series of difficult moral questions about the humanitarian enterprise.

Author: G. Pascal Zachary | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Summer2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, International, Life & Society, Philanthropy, Politics & Public Policy, Sociology | Anthropology

An unassuming Dutch traffic engineer showed that streets without signs can be safer than roads cluttered with arrows, painted lines, and lights. Are we ready to believe him?

Author: Tom Vanderbilt | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Summer2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Environment | Sustainability, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

In a new book, the writer Alan Jacobs looks at why it’s impossible for people who disagree to hold a civilized conversation.

Author: Emma Green | Source: The Atlantic (October 15, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior

“To bother to engage with problematic culture, and problematic people within that culture, is an act of love,” wrote the poet Elizabeth Alexander in contemplating power and possibility. Krista Tippett calls such engagement generous listening. And yet so much of our communication today is defined by a rather ungenerous unwillingness to listen coupled with a compulsion to speak.

The most perennially insightful and helpful remedy for … [ Read more ]

Authors: David Bohm, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (December 5, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Communication, Culture, Excerpts, Life & Society

Doctors Haidt and Graham […] argue that there is great debate over the nature of right and wrong, but that the debate is over the meaning of five moral foundations rather than over what morality is — most of the time. Those five foundations are:

1. Harm/care: This foundation is based on our neurological tendencies to attachment, compassion, and our feelings towards those who cause harm.

… [ Read more ]

Author: Scotty Hendricks | Source: Big Think (April 1, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Ethics | Integrity | Morality, Excerpts, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior, Values