Category Archives: Culture

The Yearning for the Golden Past

Posted on Thursday 31 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

The Conservative Grand Narrative, according to Jonathan Haidt (mentioned in my discussion of his book The Righteous Mind in this post) is about “the struggle to return to a golden past” — a theme we hear echoed in Republican presidential … Continue reading →

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Chris Mooney’s THE REPUBLICAN BRAIN

Posted on Friday 18 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

As I alluded in my previous post, I’ve been reading Chris Mooney’s 2012 book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality, which explores how psychology can inform the obvious fact that different people react … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments from last Sunday’s New York Times

Posted on Thursday 10 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

First, a Sunday Review front page essay by Maria Konnikova, Born to Be Conned. It’s about how people are “suckers for belief”, about confidence games, with insights into human nature, e.g. Monte operators, like all good con men, are exceptional … Continue reading →

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Sunday’s New York Times: Links and Comments

Posted on Monday 30 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Opinion column by Curt Stager: Tales of a Warmer Planet. This relates to my suspicion and prediction that efforts to ameliorate climate change will come too little and too late — because human nature cannot respond to a potential threat … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Sacred truths, Catholic priorities, and Santorum advice, vs. Individualism and the arc of moral history

Posted on Tuesday 24 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

A number of items in recent days about issues of society and culture vs. individualism, which I will compile and quote without necessarily trying to draw any conclusions just yet… These issues renovate with the Jonathan Haidt book I’m still … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Haidt, Krugman, Cruz and Swanson, Evolution v Creationism and Iowa Home-Schoolers

Posted on Friday 20 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I am 3/4 of the way through that Jonathan Haidt book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, which is almost revelatory in the sense that it provides a vocabulary and a theoretical framework for … Continue reading →

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Reading Haidt, arcs of history, false balance, how liberal views are closer to the truth, and science fiction

Posted on Thursday 12 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Beginning to read Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion today, an eloquent, insightful exploration into how the parameters of human psychology explain the range of political and religious differences. I wrote a … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments from Today’s New York Times: 25 Oct 2015

Posted on Sunday 25 October 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

You can’t escape human nature: Norway Has a New Passion: Ghost Hunting. As traditional religion has faded in many northern European nations, it’s being replaced in Norway by an increased tendency to perceive ghosts at every corner. Ghosts, or at … Continue reading →

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Lying with Phony Graphs

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

If the anti-abortion anti-Planned Parenthood folks had a case, you’d think they wouldn’t need to lie with transparently inept graphs that misrepresent the actual data. Scroll down on this link to see an actual chart, legitimately scaled, showing the services … Continue reading →

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The Atlantic on trigger warnings; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the war on reason

Posted on Tuesday 29 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I mentioned a while back the cover story on The Atlantic magazine’s September issue, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. (Haidt is the author of the book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are … Continue reading →

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