Category Archives: People, Politics & Culture
The Trump Phenomenon
Oxford Languages defines phenomenon as “a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question.” That is to say, one might be tempted to ask themselves: did this really happen? … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged 45th president, immigration, pandemic, phenomenon, racism, sociopath, Trump, USA
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In The Gray Morning Light
In a few weeks it will be International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death-camp on January 27, 1945, by the Soviet army. There are many things that continue to disturb me when I … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged Auschwitz, death-camp, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jews, Nazi Germany, People & Culture Tags Adolf Hitler, Reinhard Heydrich, The Final Solution, Wannsee Conference
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How Gullible Are We?
I have stated earlier that there is a pathetic streak of gullibility running through the human race and referred to it as “a debilitating if not fatal flaw by any other name, but seemingly so deeply embedded in our DNA … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged a flawed species, cognitive dissonance, Donald J. Trump, epistemology, gullibiliy
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The Ugly American
First used as the title of a 1948 photograph of an American tourist in Havana, the term “Ugly American” refers to a stereotype depicting a certain type of American citizen as exhibiting loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, and ethnocentric behaviour … Continue reading
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An Uncertain Future
Given what we think we know about the age of the universe, planet earth and the myriad of creatures that have and are continuing to inhabit it since life first appeared, we have arrived only recently as a species uniquely … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture, Philosophy, Science & Religion
Tagged cosmos, evolution, future
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Going Up In Smoke
I must admit, I am somewhat dumbfounded by this cannabis thing. As an erstwhile Dutchman watching the popularity of pot work its way up from Paris into Amsterdam in the late 50s, I readily admit I had a few joints … Continue reading
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A Play Without A Script
Shakespeare once wrote: All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; Sometimes I think that we humans behave like actors in a self-directed play that seemed to have lost track of its script, and that … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture, Philosophy, Science & Religion
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The Night of Broken Glass
This November it will be exactly 80 years ago that a wave of anti-Jewish savagery and destruction broke out across Nazi occupied Europe on November 9 and 10 in 1938. Known as the Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, after the shards … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged Adolf Hitler, genocide, herd instinct, instinct versus reason, Kristallnacht, mass violence, mass-manipulation, Spinoza, state-sponsored violence
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Why The World Is At War
A recent March 2018 Guardian article by Jason Burke titled “Why Is the World at War” makes the point that “The harsh reality may be that we should not be wondering why wars seem so intractable today, but why our … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged empathy and compassion, evolutionary objectives, human beings, human potential, instinct versus reason, Law of the Jungle, Might is Right, regional conflict, war, what it means to be human
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Enlightenment – How?
In response to Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress – to repeat something I stated in an earlier post – who can begin to enumerate the number and variety of social economic, health and environmental issues … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged apocalyptic consumerism, Elon Musk, Enlightenment Now, extiction, Mars, non-renewable resources, pollution, predatory capitalism, starvation, Steven Pinker
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