Walden Two is a novel written by the behaviorist B.F. Skinner. A renegade professor named Frazier conjures up a utopia. Skinner didn’t write the book in a particularly gloomy time for the human race. On the contrary, things were looking up. It was actually the discontent that he saw in his own wife that inspired … Read more
I read The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker many years ago. It was one of those books that left a strong imprint on my mind. After I first read it, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about it, especially when I was doing something that demanded a bit of attention like walking or driving. … Read more
In Dick’s world, it is hard to keep the police separate from the corporations or distinguish the state’s propaganda from capitalism’s. Or maybe they’re all space aliens. The idea isn’t so much to crush the citizens—Orwell’s notion of “a boot stamping on a human face—forever”—as letting them know who is boss, and getting another buck … Read more
Mimesis and Science, edited by Scott R. Garrels, brings together some of the best scholar of Girard’s mimetic theory, with leading imitation researchers from the cognitive, developmental, and neuro sciences In the science of man and culture today there is a unilateral swerve away from anything that could be called mimicry, imitation, or mimesis. And … Read more
Steven Pinker Fellow Canadians citizens of the world I plan to convince you that the best days of humankind lie ahead. Yes, convince. Decline us speak of a faith or belief in progress but there’s nothing faith-based about it. Our understanding of the human condition must not be grounded in myths of a fall from … Read more
Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford explores the history of technological development. We learn about the reasons for technological proliferation in the West, and the consequences it has had on society. In his landmark work, Technics and Civilization, Lewis Mumford examines the history of technology and its influence on societies since the beginning of human … Read more
The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu is about the various ways that people have tried to control our attention. From dictators, to behavioral psychologists and psychoanalysts, to advertising executives and internet entrepreneurs – the last century, and the current one, is one that will be remembered in history as that of the great attention merchants. … Read more
Microsoft’s attempt to capture the internet. If anyone had made a fortune by cornering the market for nuts and bolts and sticking to it, it was Microsoft.1 It was a surprise, therefore, when on January 3, 1996, its chief executive, Bill Gates, wearing his large, dark-framed glasses that were not yet a hipster affectation but … Read more
But apart from all her undeniable talents and abilities and charms, Oprah Winfrey also offered something unique in daytime television: food for the hungers traditionally fed by organized religion and spirituality. Her shows were a daily dose of redemptive confession or suffering, a vision of justice, and the promise of salvation in this life. At … Read more
The strength of these feelings is one reason why our celebrity culture is so frequently linked with older traditions of worship. For that ecstatic possibility of transcending the ordinary and glimpsing the infinite hardly originates in the twentieth century, but is a universal longing reflected in almost every spiritual tradition. The historian Karen Armstrong describes … Read more