2023-12-10 00:26
Let us perform a magic trick. Social conservatism and right-wing authoritarianism is linked, likely causally, to stressful and sickly conditions, as research shows in populations with high r… Read More
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2023-11-18 11:46
“The vast majority of people, perhaps 90 percent, know how to read, but do not exercise their intelligence beyond this.” ~ Jacques Ellul, Propaganda The benefits and advantages t… Read More
2023-09-05 16:57
Two bicyclists, old friends now in their late thirties, rode side-by-side down a broad multi-use trail. They passed out of woods into farmland, with a county road parallel to them for a long… Read More
2023-07-22 17:58
As with so much else, we have vast amount of health and mortality data related to various factors, but little knowledge and even less wisdom. We know so little because the data is incomplete… Read More
2023-07-21 17:21
As an exercise, watch some videos of someone like Tim Scott, a prominent Republican politician. Then compare him to Donald Trump, the present default leader of the GOP. They are both running… Read More
2023-07-17 11:18
As indicated by our last post, one focus at the moment is on the education system. But we are always interested in education in a broader sense, in terms of an intelligent and informed citiz… Read More
2023-07-16 18:19
The problem of the primary and secondary education, in the United States, is largely dependent on the local tax base. So, poor communities have poorly funded schools, while rich communities… Read More
2023-07-12 10:10
For most of Christian history, a widespread conventional or even orthodox position on abortions was that it was acceptable until ‘quickening’ when the mother could feel the baby… Read More
2023-07-10 18:44
According to certain philologists and psychologists, from E. R. Dodds to Julian Jaynes, a private internal sense of self was a social construction made possible by linguistic innovations, su… Read More
2023-06-20 15:10
Here is a quick thought. Sometimes changes in society seem to happen quickly. But typically that is because changes have been going on for a very long time, if mostly unseen or unacknowledge… Read More
2023-06-19 01:22
It’s no accident that, at the height of American labor organizing and unionization (during the brief period of American social democracy), not only was the labor movement more radicall… Read More
2023-06-13 14:54
Utopia literally means ‘no place’ or ‘nowhere’, something that doesn’t exist. That is to say it can’t be found here and now. But it doesn’t necessar… Read More
2023-05-12 14:30
“The government lies to us, we all know it. The media lies to us.” “My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency will be to end the corr… Read More
2023-04-29 23:22
“We might label this the Hobbesean fallacy: the idea that human beings were primordially individualistic and that they entered into society at a later stage in their development only a… Read More
2023-04-29 21:09
It’s always curious to see how ideological mindsets, as psychological predispositions, play out on the large-scale of populations and politics, movements and mass actions (Public Healt… Read More
2023-04-27 14:26
There is always confusion about ideology, particularly liberalism in a liberal age. Everything becomes conflated with liberalism, often in distorted ways. Even many conservatives call themse… Read More
2023-04-22 18:47
This is a politically incorrect topic not only for the Right but often for many on the Left as well, and there is really no way to make it politically correct because it challenges the entir… Read More
2023-03-30 21:00
The following is part of a CUNY talk about American democracy, as moderated by Katrina vanden Heuvel. In the section shared below, Corey Robin answers a question about the Supreme Court. He… Read More
2023-03-20 00:12
A once common microbe in the human microbiome is L. reuteri (Limosilactobacillus reuteri; formerly known as Lactobacillus reuteri). It’s been central to mammalian evolution. But in mod… Read More
2023-03-06 00:15
“The king and the people against the barons and the capitalists.” That is the motto of the Tories, according to Henry Fairlie; or at least what he claimed Toryism used to represe… Read More
2023-01-12 13:31
The imperial court of law, the traditional seat of power where assembled the great offices of the empire, was one of the most majestic of architectural feats, built out of the finest limesto… Read More
2023-01-07 12:39
The Left and the Right in Relationship We find that, in our location and life circumstances, we are in contact with a variety of people across the ideological spectrum(s), along with across… Read More
2023-01-04 12:18
“You’re the only people alive on the earth today. All those people who created traditions, created countries and created rules…they are dead. Why don’t you start you… Read More
2023-01-03 23:40
At present, we’re reading a fiction book, Jo Walton’s Or What You Will, and enjoying it. We’ve never read the author before, but plan on looking for more of her writings. T… Read More
2022-12-31 17:06
In researching religious history, one major conclusion stands out. Modern world religions are syncretic products of the worldviews and traditions that co-existed with them and preceded them;… Read More
2022-12-18 15:39
Conservative Sexual Fetishism Conservatives, as you might have noticed, have always had a fetish about other people’s sex lives, an obsessive-compulsion that drives their reactionary m… Read More
2022-12-13 15:49
Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes In 1934, a young German pediatrician named Hilde Bruch moved to America, settled in New York City, and was “startled,” as she later wrote, by the nu… Read More
2022-12-08 15:27
“You’ll be reassured to know that you don’t have to eat carbohydrates to live. It’s not an essential nutrient. “It’s one of the first things we learn in n… Read More
2022-11-23 13:11
Let’s start with a loose but practical definition of ‘ideology’. In common usage, it most basically and most broadly means a constellation of ideas, principles, beliefs, as… Read More
2022-11-01 18:21
Homo sapiens are a highly mobile species. Along with opposable thumbs and a specially-designed brain, not to mention a few other nifty capacities, our bipedal locomotion is what makes us uni… Read More
2022-10-31 23:13
In Discovery, the ongoing Star Trek series, we are in the fourth season. The fourth episode, All Is Possible, was directed by John Ottman (b. 1964) and written by Alan B. McElroy (b. 1960) a… Read More
2022-09-24 21:06
In the United States: Antifa, as a label, refers to no existing organization. And anti-fascism, as an ideology, is linked to no known acts of terrorism. These have become primary targets of… Read More
2022-09-20 02:50
A strong gust blew through the forest. The house sparrow chirped and fluttered his wings, as he bobbed up and down on the branch he perched upon. In nervousness of being a guest in someone e… Read More
2022-09-14 01:07
Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations theory gained traction some years back. His ideas aren’t brilliant or entirely original, but he is a catchy popularizer of social science. Stil… Read More
2022-09-07 12:31
Human constructed physical structures, from roads and channeled rivers to walls and buildings, are the templates of social and psychic structures. This is the foundation of social constructi… Read More
2022-09-05 20:56
Taurine is not technically an essential nutrient, but many argue it should be labeled as such (see Harry Serpanos). It’s not unusual for people, specifically as they age, to not endoge… Read More
2022-09-05 17:27
It was the holidays. Family was gathered. They were clumped together in small groups in adjoining rooms. Where the father stood with his eldest son in the kitchen, the view was open into the… Read More
2022-07-11 00:57
“As the stag pants after the waterbrooks, So pants my mind after you, O gods! My mind thirsts for gods! for living gods! When shall I come face to face with gods?” ~ Psalm 42 Fro… Read More
2022-07-01 11:37
The reactionary mind, to a large degree, is simply another way of speaking of conservatism; at least in Anglo-American society. That is separate from speaking of this being a reactionary age… Read More
2022-06-30 15:39
It’s funny that one of the oldest living generations is called the Silents (1928-1945). That is such an amazing misnomer when one looks at the individuals who have defined that generat… Read More
2022-06-20 17:13
“The foot feels the foot when the foot feels the ground.” That quote by Ernest Wood is often misattributed to the Buddha. And it does express a Buddhist-like thought. Take the no… Read More
2022-06-12 23:12
Here is what one can learn about relating well by spending a lot of time around non-human animals, in particular. But all of it also involves and is applicable to human animals as well. This… Read More
2022-05-09 13:04
What is the quality of Iowa’s drinking water? An individual might suspect that it’s quite low. It’s a farm state with one of the least regulated and most big ag friendly ec… Read More
2022-05-06 19:03
If there actually was a military-intelligence-industrial-media complex and if it had a massive black budget funded by profits from front companies and criminal enterprises and/or dark money… Read More
2022-02-06 01:06
Nearly every scientific field of study is facing a replication crisis and, although known about for decades now, it still has not been resolved. Most researchers are so limited in their know… Read More
2022-01-07 21:17
Let us throw out a simple observation with limited detail and analysis. This is a phenomenon that seems to define the reactionary mind. And so it is more often found on the American right-wi… Read More
2022-01-05 23:30
“I’m supposed to act like they aren’t here. Assuming there’s a ‘they’ at all. It may just be my imagination. Whatever it is that’s watching, it&rsqu&hell…Read More
2021-10-19 22:47
As many have written about, there was a unique, profound, and dramatic transformation that happened across many civilizations, maybe initiated by the Bronze Age collapse (c. 1200 BCE) but no… Read More
2021-09-20 14:24
What does ‘left-wing’ ideology refer to? What was the original and basic meaning? The main element and motivating force of leftism has been to perceive the world, society, and pe… Read More
2021-09-12 19:18
There is a comedy sketch, This is Your Brain After Thirty, from the group It’s a Southern Thing. It is a parody of a pharmaceutical commercial. And the target audience is Millennials w… Read More
2021-08-30 23:21
It’s fascinating how the more reactionary conservatives can occasionally be quite honest, if in a backwards kind of way. There is always an attempt to obscure, even as damning truths a… Read More
2021-08-03 15:22
Shared responsibility, collective action, and intergenerational justice are core Biblical value. Certainly, moral concern for the least among us is as Christian as it gets. It’s strang… Read More
2021-07-23 23:00
Consumption of Unprocessed Red Meat Is Not a Risk to Health from World Farmers’ Organisation (WFO) Scientific Council A synopsis of five significant, recent and broad-scale scient… Read More
2021-06-17 23:18
The answer, according to a hunter-gatherer: “Meat.” “Honey.” “Corn porridge.” That is the order he gave them in. He paused between stating each.&nbs&hell…Read More
2021-06-06 23:44
When our uncle died recently, we cleaned out his house and it was quite the job. He had been a bachelor his entire life and had lived alone in that large house since the 1970s. He left behin… Read More
2021-06-01 19:26
This is part of an interview by Russel Brand. The man speaking is Dr. Gabor Maté, a Jew and an infant survivor of the Holocaust. Many in his family died in Nazi death camps. Besides s… Read More
2021-05-25 17:53
By the early 1900s, the modern diet had long been a growing concern, as it already was a topic of public debate going back a century, such as obesity and conditions like ‘nerves’… Read More
2021-05-16 03:59
Related to the high-fat vs low-fat debate, there is an interesting article to shake up our thinking: Study of Alaska Natives confirms salmon-rich diet prevents diabetes, heart disease… Read More
2021-05-08 01:14
In reference to the below COVID-19 graph of loss of life and jobs (per capita), someone wrote to us that the, “Lower left would appear better [i.e., more people alive and working. BDS]… Read More
2021-04-11 00:32
[T]he chief matter . . . being now not the fruits of the earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that which takes in, and carries with it all the rest. John Locke… Read More
2021-04-09 00:21
It’s been previously argued, if somewhat jokingly, that we are all white liberals now. There are various methods for denigrating liberalism. A typical tactic is to throw in some other… Read More
2021-04-07 16:16
“Remember all those supermajority poll results? Think where the polls on all these things would be if the press did its job, instead of aligning with the corporations and the pol… Read More
2021-04-05 01:15
”One can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion.&rdqu&hell…Read More
2021-04-04 04:45
We’ve come to a new point in life, maybe approaching something vaguely resembling maturity if not yet wisdom. A change in attitude was recently expressed in changes made to this blog&r&hell…Read More
2021-03-19 13:22
Accusing your enemy of doing what you’re doing—in this case, right-wing organizations canceling left-wing academics, and then claiming liberals are perpetrating cancel culture&md&hell…Read More
2021-03-13 17:55
After the past year of Black Lives Matters (BLM) protests, one of the early cases of police brutality finally makes its way into trial. Check out this article about the jury selection in the… Read More
2021-02-22 01:57
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the… great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Klu Klux Klanner, but t… Read More
2021-02-21 01:12
Man is not man as yet,Nor shall I deem his object served, his endAttained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,While only here and there a star dispelsThe darkness. Here and there a toweri… Read More
2021-02-20 00:35
I previously criticized Zach Goldberg’s article on white liberals. He wanted to make them out to seem like not only extremist ideologues but also psychologically abnormal. At times, it… Read More
2021-02-18 21:11
The following is more thoughts on the contrast between Germanic ‘freedom’ and Latin ‘liberty’ (see previous post: Libertarian Authoritarianism). The one is a non-lega… Read More
2021-02-18 00:33
From Tablet Magazine, Zach Goldberg writes about white liberals, what he calls America’s White Saviors. This is an example of how corporate media slants their reporting on public opini… Read More
2021-02-17 22:19
The reactionary mind is obsessed with reified abstractions translated into symbolic visions and causes. This is seen with Edmund Burke’s moral imagining of the overthrow of the French… Read More
2021-02-13 21:18
This is what organized religion means for most people. This is what would happen if God actually answered people’s prayers. The response would be even worse if Jesus came back in the f… Read More
2021-02-13 03:18
Libertarianism is a strange creature. It originated as part of the European workers movement, alongside Marxism, communism, and anarchism. But in the US, this history has been forgotten and… Read More
2021-02-06 23:33
There has been much debate about the causes of autism, from genetics to diet. Many have suspected a link to heavy metals. According to a 2017 NIH study, strong evidence of this link has been… Read More
2021-02-06 19:59
Here are some of thoughts on the present state and future potential of the Republican Party. Besides those like Cindy McCain and Mitt Romney, there have been waves of moderates, conservative… Read More
2021-02-04 18:33
Of all forms of pessimism, the metaphysical form was, for a historian, the least enticing. Of all studies, the one he would rather have avoided was that of his own mind. He knew no tragedy s… Read More
2021-01-26 23:51
Bhutan sounds like a lovely place to live. It exemplifies civic virtue and culture of trust. And it’s probably the most powerful example of social democracy in the world, despite limit… Read More
2021-01-23 22:25
What is the deep state within, behind, or above the United States government? Let’s look at some real world examples of brief moments when we the public get to glimpse the dark underbe… Read More
2021-01-13 12:45
The isolated self is not real, but the fearful mind makes it feel real. We always exist in interrelationship with others, with the world, and with a shared sense of our humanity. This greate… Read More
2021-01-06 20:13
There was a group of people huddled in a dungeon, prisoners for reasons long forgotten. They were chained together, unable to move about. It was the only life they knew and there was a comfo… Read More
2021-01-03 20:00
My grandfather, Clayton John Steele (1914-1993), was a minister. He was raised as an only child by a doting mother, Matilda Viola Steele (1881-1954), and an emotionally distant father, Charl… Read More
2020-12-31 21:06
Where is the world heading and upon what might it all be revolving? One would be unwise to speculate too much or offer strong predictions, but it must be noted that there has been a general… Read More
2020-12-31 18:27
Apartheid in South Africa was a violently oppressive system, one among many in history. And whenever there is oppression, there are always those who resist and fight against it. A once less… Read More
2020-12-28 04:02
For you are all children of God in the Spirit.There is no Jew or Greek;There is no slave or free;There is no male and female.For you are all one in the Spirit. Based on Galations 3:28, Steph… Read More
2020-12-27 14:36
The foundng debate of Federalists and Anti-Federalists is always of interest. In perusng the writings, particularly the letters, of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Tho… Read More
2020-12-23 22:54
Patriotism has been lower in recent decades and it continues a steady decline in the United States. It’s even lower in some other Western countries, such as Britain and Germany. And of… Read More
2020-12-13 02:49
Below is a passage from a book I got for my birthday. I was skimming through this tome and came across a note from one of the later chapters. It discusses a theory about how new substances… Read More
2020-12-12 22:55
Here is a quickie. Jordan Peterson likes to oversimplify things with easy answers, as that is what his audience wants. He mixes genuine information with misinformaton and misinterpretaton. T… Read More
2020-12-10 20:12
All the time, people say what they don’t mean. Or else it’s not clear what they mean, the actual significance behind their words, what is most fundamentally motivating them. This… Read More
2020-12-10 00:31
There is heated debate about bone broth ‘scum’, the bits and foam that float to the top in simmering. What is this disgusting stuff? And if consumed, how quickly will it kill you… Read More
2020-12-07 12:50
As one sees on occasion in the news, there was a local story of a child with a disease that was being treated. The purpose is to elicit sympathy and/or inspiration. The reporting is often ab… Read More
2020-12-06 16:04
How do media bubbles work? We often think of this phenomenon in simplistc ways. A media bubble is perceived as a person hearing certain sources of info while not hearing others. It’s a… Read More
2020-11-29 22:37
Where is the demos in democracy? What do Americans think as a people and a public? That is the eternal question in a country that was made famous by being founded as the first modern democra… Read More
2020-11-29 01:08
I wouldn’t necessarily argue about Joe Biden’s campaign promises or anyone else’s campaign promises, not even those of Donald Trump. But what does concern me is the actual… Read More
2020-11-27 01:06
This is a post I didn’t desire to write but felt compelled to do so. It’s the same topic of another recent post, Trump Family And Elite Corruption. When I shared that other one w… Read More
2020-11-26 18:20
We modern people are used to hearing voices in our heads. This is taken as normal. The inner self that speaks inwardly arises in the individual hearing that self speak. Speaking is hearing… Read More
2020-11-16 00:19
“Whether the response is lashing out, turning inward, tuning out, or giving up, Americans are becoming increasingly paralyzed by disagreement, disillusionment, and despair. Indeed, man… Read More
2020-11-14 20:27
Here we are, nearing the end of Donald Trump’s administration. He may have only been a one-term president, but he has left quite a wake in his passing through the halls of power (not u… Read More
2020-11-08 23:14
According to a Fox News poll, the majority of Americans have become radicalized extremists, Marxist commies, and fellow travelers! They might also be postmodern moral relativists or even eco… Read More
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