The Future of the Humanities and the Specter of Antisemitism
According to the sages, God begins with one and not two, so that no one can say to another, “My side of the family is better than your side of the family”: there is only one side of the human family, with all the ethical obligations that come to bear in being part of the human family.
The Thin Crust of Civilization
The ability to see patterns is predictive of a strong belief in them, which can easily become a faith in the unseen workings of power.
The Problem With Happiness
If we are to make our lives meaningful, we must live for values beyond happiness, values that may conflict with happiness.
Did Robert E. Lee Commit Treason?
By the time of the Civil War, only five convictions for treason had ever emerged from the federal courts, and all of those had occurred in the administrations of Washington and John Adams.
Will Civilizations Clash?
In his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington said that wars of the future would not be fought by nation against nation, but by cultures and religions from different civilizations, one against the other.
The Wilcox Space
A Texas-raised, Colorado-educated, artist in rural California developed a profound originality largely because he was not part of a regional aesthetic tradition.
Digital Games, Science Fiction and the Death of Literature
Like literary works, video games can perform the didactic function of moral education as well if a video game incorporates a classic literary work into its designing.
The Other Ursula Le Guin
The realization that all humans share the “singular catastrophe of being alive,” is essential to the experience of being fully human.
Africa, Agency and the Anthropocene
The porousness between dream, thought, myth and reality is at the core of the indigenous worldview and in turn, its performance.
The Virgin, the Dynamo and the Tent
Having begun in the 1870s as a popular but academically rigorous alternative to university education, Chautauqua offered the opportunity for higher and broader education to the aspiring middle class.
The University in Flux
Love or fear of technology errs when in the extreme; technology with human interaction is the sort of symbiotic unity that benefits the student.
Whither Athenaeum?
Above all, Athenaea are intimate—the opposite of mass culture, the spectacle, and the metrics of the digital era.
To Enlighten And Annoy
Einstein wrote that “all religions, arts and sciences aspiring to ennoble human existence are branches of the same tree.”
Avoiding an Unforced Error
Since democracy tends to “travel” through regional diffusion mechanisms, democracy aid to one country in a region has a high likelihood of contributing to a “contagion” effect.
