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current-events

  • ARTSblog » Blog Archive » STEM Promotes Science Instruction at the Expense of Humanities

    My good sister & colleague Kelli Barr responded to the ARTSblog piece to which I posted a link the other day. Besides a response here at Reason & Existenz, she also wrote a longer reaction at ARTSblog. She goes into… Continue reading

    ARTSblog » Blog Archive » STEM Promotes Science Instruction at the Expense of Humanities

  • The Rise of Democratic Schools and ‘Solutionaries’…

    Twenty years ago at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, a 12-year-old girl from Canada, “silenced the world for six minutes” with her raw and powerful oration lambasting adults for dumping the problems they created onto the… Continue reading

  • Political Gnosticism & Far Right Wing Implosion

    Oh, America… your ultra right wing folk have utterly melted down. This gent offers a “stiff-upper-lip comrades, we shall soldier on to save the barbarians from themselves” on the one hand and then succumbs to utter doom on the other.… Continue reading

  • Class, Race, & Economic Discipline

    As always, a nice find by my good brother Carl Sachs. Very interesting. Notwithstanding slavery, segregation and today’s covert racism, the Southern system has always been based on economics, not race.  Its rulers have always seen the comparative advantage of… Continue reading

  • Racial Excuses Already

    Election night is not even over and Bill O’Reilly already sets the stage for the resentment parade. At first I was going to go through and take it on point by point. But it literally began to make me feel… Continue reading

  • Poll Quants & the Book of Life

    I’ve been unpacking my notions about the Society of Control a lot in the last few months. Primarily of late, this centers on developing the notion that control is about accounting… we use a mathematical model to translate the Life-World… Continue reading

    Poll Quants & the Book of Life

  • How do we Shape Souls Without Longing?

    Nice looking backward at Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind. Deneen correctly locates the import of the text in its prescient concern with the dis-ease of indifference. Today we live in a different age, one that so worried Bloom—an age… Continue reading

  • The Book of Life

    A recent Truthout.org article speaks to our living in an impoverished age. The issue with our impoverishment arises from not comprehending how the “plutocracy” is a conceptual weapon, not only against the 99% but against themselves as well. One thing… Continue reading

    The Book of Life

  • Denton Drilling: Draft ordinance needs overhaul

    Denton, Texas’ draft ordinance concerning gas drilling gets an F from local citizens. Time for a do over. Last night, about forty dedicated citizens gathered to review the draft gas drilling ordinance and generate ideas for how to improve it.… Continue reading

  • The Pay-‘Em-or-Lose-‘Em Myth

    There was a time when I thought the arguments given for ever rising executive compensation were all examples of the slippery slope. Stupid me! I now realize that they are examples of a false dichotomy. How is it that I… Continue reading

  • Makers & Takers: More of the Long Con

    A lot of my “everyday” existential philosophizing takes the form of asking people to be aware of the Long Con or the Big Sting… that is where you become your own mark in the long con game of bad faith… Continue reading

  • Killing the Liberal Arts… A Non-Conservation

    The importance of the humanities in educating citizens is why we have undoubtedly seen the consequences of the decline in of the liberal arts nowhere more than in the quality of the public debate. The disappearance of the liberal arts… Continue reading

  • The Corporate Capitalist Gamble: American’s will “venture” for Mitt

    Romney’s suggestion that only business owners should occupy the White House was hardly surprising; it just reinforced the reverence for builders of small businesses manifested in the Republican gathering in Tampa. But it is a curious claim nonetheless. For most… Continue reading

  • Chasing the swing vote – Salon.com

    This year’s Republican Convention wins the prize for most conflicted message. Half the time, the convention was devoted to assuring those elusive swing voters — who needed assurance that Republicans really aren’t all angry old white men who hate women… Continue reading

  • Karl Jaspers on the Struggle for Existence

    My existence as such deprives others, just as they deprive me. Every position I occupy excludes another, claiming some of the limited space available. Every success I have diminishes others. My very life is due to the victorious struggle of my forebears, and… Continue reading

  • Should the South secede? – Salon.com

    Before anybody jumps to the conclusion that I believe the south should secede, I want to state categorically that this is not the point of view from where I am coming. An interesting aspect of this interview is that the… Continue reading

  • A Public Soul in Stasis: Ayn Rand vs. the Pope – Salon.com

    The Greek word for “civil war” is stasis. While that might seem strange to them modern ear, it actually makes sense. Stasis is achieved when two or more great forces bring a thing/process to a halt. Much of our public… Continue reading

  • Speaking to the Character of Paul Ryan…

    Ejecting people who ask him questions. I suppose it is something done by all politicians at some point in their career. One thing different here, we get a quip from the politician that points out a particular brutality –thank you… Continue reading