Fake news can be defined as “a form of news consisting of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional news media (print and broadcast) or online social media” (Wikipedia). Many people are understandably expressing their concern, even panic, over not knowing how to… Read more ›
In January of 1972 BBC Two broadcasted a four episode television series called Ways of Seeing written and presented by John Berger (1926-2017). The series was subsequently adapted into the book Ways of Seeing which was published in 1973. Both… Read more ›
Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849 It is March 21, 2020 and the coronavirus is a pandemic threatening everyone on Earth. In my relative isolation of social distancing, I have had more time to read and I was drawn to a tale… Read more ›
The American philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952) offered a groundbreaking account of art in his Art as Experience (1934). This account, which reorients our understanding of art towards aesthetic experience, forges profound connections with education, democracy, and evolution. In what follows,… Read more ›
Jacques Ellul, in his book Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (Vintage, 1965), defines propaganda as follows: “Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its… Read more ›
When we try to diagnose the many social ills we have in our country it is easy to get bogged down with specifics that lead us to treat symptoms rather than causes. One way to gain some vision is to… Read more ›
Machiavelli In The Prince (Penguin: 1981), Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote: “There are two things a prince must fear: internal subversion from his subjects; and external aggression by foreign powers. Against the latter, his defense lies in being well-armed and having good… Read more ›
July 4, 2017 The framers of the Declaration of Independence knew they couldn’t justify a rebellion against the King of England given the Divine Right of Kings theory of government. According to this theory, Kings rule by divine right which… Read more ›
Consider an aphorism attributed to Heraclitus of Epheseus (active circa 500 BC): “They do not understand how, while being at variance, it is in agreement with itself. There is a back-turning connection, like that of a bow or lyre” (frag.… Read more ›
Sometime between 1883 and 1888 the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche made a startling observation: “No, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations.” This view, which Nietzsche called perspectivism, has recently found an unparalleled analogue in American politics. For example,… Read more ›
Plato, in his dialogue Republic (see Book II, lines 368-374), has Socrates construct an ideal state in order to figure out what an ideal soul would look like. Socrates begins by describing a variety of people – shoemaker, weaver, builder, farmer,… Read more ›
John Locke (1632-1704), in Book II of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) writes: “Our observation employed either about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected upon by ourselves, is that which supplies our… Read more ›
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer wasn’t allowed to join in those reindeer games. The games, that is, of the normal reindeer, the ones that looked like each other. He was shunned as a misfit who wasn’t worth much. After all, worth… Read more ›
In the last two posts I explored the basics of natural law theory and some examples of it in action in relation to social justice. Now let’s take a closer look Martin Luther King, Jr.’s use of the theory which,… Read more ›
The philosopher John Rawls, in the beginning of his classic book A Theory of Justice, wrote the following intuitively appealing description of justice: “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory… Read more ›