Most people find you unlikable and unlovable. You have lots of enmity and many faults. You feel lost when you die.
The five drawbacks of intolerance.
]]>Why do we see more information [about other people’s stuggles] as threatening rather than as clarifying? At the point that we can see that things are hard for all of us, then we [should] know that it’s a structural problem.
]]>Why is the solution always “my kid is going to be one of the twenty” rather than “why are there only twenty slots?” The inability to make that [mental] shift [from competition to solidarity] is what keeps messing us up.
An inability to engage with our communities hurts everyone
While the article is a bit parochial (focusing on the pandemic-era United States) its conclusion is broadly true under advanced, global Capitalism.
]]>You can get to know a person’s ethics by living with them. But only after a long time, not casually; only when attentive, not when inattentive; and only by the wise, not by the witless.
A diverse group of ascetics passes by, and Pasenadi asks the Buddha if any of them are perfected.
]]>When those seven days have passed, having emerged from their hiding places and embraced each other, they will come together and cry in one voice, ‘Fantastic, dear foe, you live!’
In illustration of his dictum that one should rely on oneself, the Buddha gives a detailed account of the fall of a kingly lineage of the past, and the subsequent degeneration of society. This process, however, is not over, as the Buddha predicts that eventually society will fall into utter chaos. But far in the far future, another Buddha, Metteyya, will arise in a time of peace and plenty.
]]>Of course, there will be instances where a stranger will not be amenable to your overtures (this isn’t permission to harass people on the street), but your intention should be to brighten someone’s day without worrying what they think about you.
]]>Pride is a highly pleasant emotion; this internal reward can incentivize people to undertake and persevere at costly but socially valued courses of action. Pride has a full-body display featuring an erect and expanded posture and gaze directed at the audience and thus it appears to generate common knowledge about the individual’s enhanced value. This display conveys achievement and dominance, is produced by congenitally blind individuals, and is recognized by young children and by adults across cultures.
Pride is a universal system that is part of our species’ cooperative biology.
See also this research group’s related article on shame.
]]>Rather than “total prohibition”, [the Tongan word “taboo”’s] original denotation had to do with sacredness and uniqueness.
]]>Many of [Hoi An’s new restaurants] specialized in fish and seafood, but others served expensive animal flesh attributed with virility, strength, and sexual potency, such as he-goat or wild animals. The virility and potency embedded in the flesh of these animals was further exacerbated by the hot, libido-enhancing spices such as chili, lemongrass, ginger, and rau răm. […] these venues were practically brothels.
At a time when bandits are strong, kings are weak…
]]>The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
In World War II, Britain invented the electronic computer. By the 1970s, its computing industry had collapsed—thanks to a labor shortage produced by sexism.
]]>Participants who were asked to talk with another person expected to learn significantly less from the conversation than they actually reported learning afterward, regardless of whether they had conversation prompts and whether they had the goal to learn (experiments 1 and 2). Undervaluing conversation does not stem from having systematically poor opinions of how much others know (experiment 3) but is instead related to the inherent uncertainty involved in conversation itself.
]]>… miscalibrated expectations about how much can be learned from other people may keep people from learning more in everyday life, frustrating their desire to know by keeping them from approaching a surprisingly informative source of knowledge.
… a call to a hotline of sorts, though one I’d never heard about before and was surprised to learn existed…
]]>… feeling close to the match is associated with an 86% increase in the probability of assimilation of political views. Our analysis also uncovers an asymmetry: Interacting with someone with opposite views greatly reduced feelings of closeness; however, interacting with someone with consistent views only moderately increased them.
]]>… seeing this danger in association,
fare singly as the rhino’s horn.
If you can’t find a good teacher, it’s better to wander alone than to consort with fools.
]]>Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.
]]>We are brothers in what we share.
Why do we feel this and what can we do about it?
]]>One of the important contributions of the past 30 years of research has been to clarify the concepts involved in the tragedy of the commons. Things are not as simple as they seem in the prototypical model. Human motivation is complex, the rules governing real commons do not always permit free access to everyone, and the resource systems themselves have dynamics that influence their response to human use. The result is often not the “tragedy” described by Hardin but what [Bonnie] McCay has described as a “comedy”—a drama for certain, but one with a happy ending.
]]>… a bad person and a worse person, a good person and a better person
Is it better to preach the Dhamma or to practice it?
]]>Humans have cooperative sentiments usually assumed to be absent in rational choice theories. On the other hand, the slow rate at which cooperative institutions evolve suggests that considerable friction will afflict our ability to grow up commons management institutions where they do not already exist and to readapt existing institutions to rapid technological and economic change.
An answer to the question of how selfish genes produced cooperative people.
]]>They get a good reputation and grow in fame,
those who develop the direct route
… the act of disappearing is not illegal in and of itself. You have the right to go missing. But believing that no one would miss you? That’s ridiculous
]]>… municipalities of Spain with a history of a stronger inquisitorial presence show lower economic performance, educational attainment, and trust today. The effects persist after controlling for historical indicators of religiosity and wealth
]]>Some questions to ponder and discuss after watching this video:
… seven principles that prevent decline
]]>Loneliness in America isn’t merely the result of inevitable or abstract forces, like technological progress; it’s the product of social structures we’ve chosen
]]>… the history, myth and cult of a Burmese Buddha image standing in the middle of the [Shan] city of Chiang Tung and the ways in which religious visual culture expresses ethnic-religious identity.
Religious art, as a symbol of culture, is inevitably political. And yet, for whatever reasons an icon might be installed, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes adopted by its hosts.
]]>All these problems with information have always been a problem for human beings. Then you get the internet, which is the informational equivalent of giant cities and now it’s an existential crisis. So we’ll have to develop the generational equivalent of both sanitation at the platform level and best practices as individuals—the “washing your hands” of misinformation. Both things will have to happen
On what it takes to change someone’s mind, and a reflection on whether you should even try in the first place.
]]>… the kind of tragedy that befell Tierney and her daughter can be averted if we appeal to the better parts of human nature
]]>Craving is a cause of seeking. Seeking is a cause of gaining…
Nine things that are rooted in craving.
]]>Possessions, honor, and popularity are brutal, bitter, and harsh.
Even someone who would not lie for the sake of their mother could do so when corrupted by material possessions.
]]>The panic attacks started after Chloe watched a man die.
What it takes to keep social media clean.
]]>You read the road as if it’s encrypted with what a father should say on a drive like this.
]]>The key is to think of what we offer as a gift.
Some “sage advice” on how to find—and be—a “hero.”
]]>What should one who desires the good
not give away?
What should a mortal not reject?
… the fight for disability rights in the UK and India, the remarkable life of Helen Keller, how a Rwandan Paralympic volleyball team made history, and the invention of the Invacar
]]>Dharma principles are manifested in the social construction of norms and beliefs and in the ways macro-level social structures and change are founded on micro-level social interactions embedded in mundane moments
]]>… can you point out a fruit of giving that’s apparent in the present life?
The Buddha teaches General Sīha the benefits of giving.
]]>We wrote our names all over the city because we felt invisible. And it was fun. I existed when I did graffiti.
]]>Sexual harassment is more prevalent for women supervisors than for women employees.
]]>… studies suggest that diversity statements [should] be aspirational, emphasize autonomy, and express a value for difference
]]>… here is something that will certainly pass for an apocalypse until the real thing comes along.
]]>… a defense against reality
]]>Therapy assumes that someone is sick and that there is a cure, e.g., a personal solution. I am greatly offended that I or any other woman is thought to need therapy in the first place. Women are messed over, not messed up! We need to change the objective conditions, not adjust to them.
A highly influential, feminist essay which is still informing leftist thought today.
For a conversation on what it means, check out Chris Hayes’ interview with Brittney Cooper.
]]>… humans exhibit a tendency to identify, adopt, and enforce the norms of their local communities.
]]>Aśvaghoṣa twice refers to a story in which the ṛṣi Vyāsa was kicked by a prostitute…
]]>… two stories of people trying to figure out what to say or if they should say anything in this moment of backlash.
]]>Hearing about the latest reality TV show with 20 beautiful women chasing after a rich bachelor, watching a commercial showing a woman getting excited about a kitchen cleaner, or even taking a class with a White instructor are all ways the environment can conspire to make us think about our social identities.
]]>Hannah Arendt knew what was at stake. In 1951, she published a hefty book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, which traced the roots of what was happening in Europe…
]]>A community is defined by four criteria: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection.
]]>… how we see the world is dependent upon what we expect to see
]]>Across from me she
was crying badly…
Morning: walking my neighborhood, I come upon a colony
of ants busy at work…
when the day calls i will answer
]]>i open the screen door slowly
n wait for Abuela n her red walker
to begin the procession
from the back door out to the street
I too have had my hands full of what keeps me
contained…
The people I love the best
jump into work
But beauty wasn’t enough.
]]>… of all the grounds for making worldly merit, none are worth a sixteenth part of the heart’s release by love.
Goodwill far outshines all other ways of making merit.
]]>When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled…
all those bodies in Departures
are naked under clothes and scarred
We were thirty-one souls, he said, in the gray-sick of sea…
]]>… a simple guide that shows you the term isn’t as cringey or scary as it’s all made out to be
]]>You can get the student workbook here.
]]>… engineering education successfully turns potential critics into agents of cultural reproduction
]]>… studies gave statistically significant positive results indicating that people really could tell when they were being looked at from behind
A review of the studies investigating this common form of telepathy.
]]>Are diversity and harmony necessarily at odds?
]]>When I took the stand at the trial in San Francisco in 1993 I could not have done worse…
A writer for The New Yorker gets a second chance to prove her innocence.
]]>[Hunter-gatherers] considered themselves affluent and enjoyed a degree of affluence as a result of that. Yet we seem to be trapped in this cycle of ever pursuing more and greater growth, greater wealth, greater anything. It seems that our aspirations now grow endlessly.
A conversation on how consumerism is making us unhappy and what a different culture might look like.
]]>Back in the 1930s, Alan Lomax traveled the country recording obscure musicians of all stripes for the Library of Congress. Lomax believed that the culture of poor Americans was important, and worthy of saving. And it was these same beliefs that led to an investigation by the FBI.
]]>… during this season we remember and celebrate the lives of all our departed loved ones
A brief introduction to the idea behind the Japanese “ghost” festival.
]]>… care and skill provide blueprints for museums to manage the precarity, obsolescence and impermanence that inflect the techniques and technologies used to make many of their collections, as well as to support the discourses of preservation that underpin traditional definitions of heritage and conservation
]]>… how do you come to understand, make sense of, listen to, take seriously the observations and the reflections that come from people’s lived experiences?
]]>… ways of understanding their [group’s] distinctiveness which challenge dominant characterizations with the goal of greater self-determination
A definitive introduction to the subject.
]]>I would frequently see adults recount something a child had said that was particularly provocative or deep by describing it as “adorable.” “How cute they are.” Even well-meaning adults just kind of dismiss children’s larger questions and ideas.
On taking children seriously as philosophers and as fellow human beings.
]]>… the real enemy of man is not man. The real enemy is our ignorance, discrimination, fear, craving, and violence.
]]>Each year, Ma collects more and more superstitions
]]>… in order to understand the truth of any situation, you have to start from the position that every person is equally valuable, and that what they have to say must be heard. And whether that is in a clique where somebody is being shunned and blamed for everything, or whether that’s an entire class of people whose experiences are not taken into account, it’s the same formula from the bottom to the top: let everyone speak and let everyone be heard.
]]>We have brains in order to get along with each other […] Trauma destroys the capacity to imagine
How PTSD operates as a personal, cognitive response to a social breakdown and what that says about society and recovery.
]]>Are we really living according to our ideals?
A talk on overcoming philosophical laziness.
]]>… what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law?
]]>… you should ignore that person’s impure behavior
A series of remarkable similes illustrate the lengths we should go to to remove resent.
]]>Power allows the ego to be with him- or herself in the other. It creates a continuity of the self.
An exploration of power reacting to a few modern philosophers on the subject.
I found the work engaging and impressive, despite its odd avoidance of the psychological. As a Buddhist, I can’t agree that “life as such cannot be understood in terms of causal relations,” though I appreciate the book, insofar as it advocates and “leads to […] an ethics and aesthetics of the no one: friendliness free of intentions, even free of wishes.”
]]>Deepa’s Russian pens pals were obsessed with Bollywood
On the cultural exchange between newly-independent India and the U.S.S.R.
]]>Welcome to the Sunshine Hotel, […] the end of the line.
A portrait of the last of the Bowery’s great flophouses.
]]>We always say “Nobody knew,” and that means that everyone who knew was a nobody.
]]>… the majority of philosophy is based on assumptions about the basic cognitive endowments of average individuals that totally disregard what is known about human development
A critique of the Western assumption of the rational citizen and a full-throated defense of education as activism.
]]>… there is no viable future for civilisation that does not include a radical change in the nature of our educational systems
]]>… as the number of cargo ships has increased, so has a problem: workers stuck on ships that have been completely abandoned by the owners, leaving them stranded out at sea without basic supplies like food.
]]>What should have been a difficult few months turned into 30 years of bloodshed and mayhem in Northern Ireland.
Those in power keep authority through the fair, impartial, and sympathetic application of justice. Where there is no justice, there is no legitimacy. Where there is no legitimacy, there will be no peace.
]]>To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative—to abandon trust as a defense against predation and deception—is worse.
A book about how our trusting and generous nature has been systematically undermined by aggressive policies and its tragic consequences for Sandra Bland and our society as a whole.
I recommend starting with chapter three (available for free here!) and four and then skipping ahead to the last two chapters because the middle chapters are awful and the first couple simply aren’t important. These four chapters (3, 4, 11, and 12) give you all the meat of the book while sparing you some horrific and unnecessary diversions into e.g. pedophilia.
While the monograph exists in written form, I recommend listening to the audiobook. With archival recordings of the original interviews used wherever the book quotes a primary source (or actors where such recordings don’t exist), original music, and narration by, of course, the author himself, the book sounds more like a slick podcast than a scripted robot. Hopefully the future of audiobooks!
]]>The song goes on forever then it stops. Its basic idea is that time can be defeated for an hour if everyone breathes together, but songs are not made out of ideas
]]>… these hours were often spent in the company of close friends: women and adolescent girls used the twilight to enjoy the company of female friends, while some youth reported visiting friends’ houses where they played and listened to music, completed their homework or chatted. Others spent their pocket money on movies or karaoke.
On the nightlife of the Karen refugee camps.
]]>The shift from hunting-gathering to farming began only about 11,000 years ago; the first metal tools were produced only about 7,000 years ago; and the first state government and the first writing arose only around 5,400 years ago. “Modern” conditions have prevailed, even just locally, for only a tiny fraction of human history
Paints a vivid picture of what traditional life was like (is still like in some places) in prehistoric human societies and contrasts this with how most humans (especially in the West) live today. Jared Diamond himself lived this way for some time and brings a unique and earnest voice to the subject which I found affective and memorable.
]]>If history shows anything, it is that there’s no better way to justify relations founded on violence—to make such relations seem moral—than by reframing them in the language of debt—above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it’s the victim who’s doing something wrong.
A thorough deconstruction of the idea of money and a scandalous exposé of the history of our global order from the perspective of one of man’s most powerful ideas.
]]>Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
A classic collection of essays on the relationship between ideas and society which draws heavily on Huxley’s engagements with Buddhist philosophy.
The product of a bygone era, Ends and Means diagnoses modernity without the despair or self-promotion characteristic of later engagements. One instead feels the vitality and honesty that animated Huxley’s life and continue to inspire readers nearly a century later.
]]>Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context–randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out by calling out “I swear to God!” is to be called insane, crass, crazy. Bad sportsmanship.
An astonishingly good book of poetry describing the contemporary African American experience and how “race” emerges in relation.
]]>… power need not be only repressive. Think of how our parents, schools, employers, and even peers mold our behavior. This molding doesn’t just stop us from doing certain things. It makes or encourages us
A short pamphlet defining power in the political sense. When we think about how the sangha works, it’s useful to reflect on the complex and variable nature of power and authority.
]]>