Those who believe there’s no basis for ethics without a god, or at least a religion, can’t see there’s a downside to violating others absent a supernatural referee. I understand why they might feel that way. It’s the same sort of thinking behind acceptance of government courts and police. Why not be a thug if no one is looking over your shoulder and holding you accountable?
Tag: change
Don’t Self-Identify As Something You Don’t Respect
When you find ourselves in the middle of doing something you don’t respect, it’s all too easy to identify as a person with things you don’t respect: flakiness, klutziness, cowardice, dishonesty. You might even go so far as to label yourself. Stop doing this.
How to Develop a Mind That Clings to Nothing
If someone irritates you, it’s because you are attached to a particular way you want them to behave, and when you don’t get that way, you are unhappy. If your mind didn’t cling to what you wanted, you would be fine with how they were acting. In fact, you might have compassion for them, as you could see they are suffering.
The Tragicomedy of Russiagate
Let’s assume — purely for the sake of discussion since no evidence has been made public — that the Russians did it. Note, first, that the “it” looks like the product of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. I’m not going to do what Johnstone, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, and the late Robert Parry have done so well so many times, namely, catalog all the inane acts the Putin-guided Russian intel agencies are said to have committed in order to bring down America. (Start here.) Suffice it to say that if that’s the best Putin can come up with, we have little to worry about.
A Letter to ‘Students Demand Action’ from a Gun Owner
I understand. You’ve witnessed — far too often at first hand and in the most terrifying circumstances — the violent deaths of your fellow students. You refuse to accept that that’s just how it has to be. You’re organizing for change. You deserve to be heard. Don’t let anyone talk down to you or minimize your concerns. You want action. I don’t blame you. But it’s important to consider what kind of action you want, how to go about getting it, and what it will accomplish.
Sexual Harassment: A Keyhole Solution
Firms should adopt the speed dating paradigm. Let everyone secretly record their feelings, if any, for their co-workers. If the feelings are unrequited, no one ever finds out. If the feelings are mutual, however, both parties receive official confirmation. And unless they edit their recorded preferences, they waive their right to complain about (or sue over) unwanted attention from whoever they explicitly approved.
Why I’m Bullish on the Future of Capitalism
People love to create, exchange, produce, consume, innovate, improve, and seek material and spiritual progress, happiness, and comfort. The remotest place on earth, if humans live there, will have shops and markets and trading of some kind. Everywhere capitalism has an ounce of oxygen or an inch of space it explodes with a force untouchable by any do-gooder scheme of violence and control.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Russiagate
In case anyone’s forgotten, Russia is a nuclear power. Throwing around the phrase “act of war” is over-the-top insanity. It’s a call for the transformation of some Facebook ads into burning cities and piles of body bags, all because an election didn’t come out the way some people wanted and expected it to.
Is Education Worth It? My Opening Statement
Is the education system really a waste of time and money, as my new book claims right on the cover? This is a strange topic to debate with Eric Hanushek. Why? Because if Hanushek had absolute power to fix the education system, education might actually be worth every penny. Hanushek is famous for focusing on what schools teach rather than what they spend – and documenting the vast disconnect between the two. If you haven’t already read his dissection of “input-based education policies,” you really ought to. Hanushek, more than any other economist, has taught us that measured literacy and numeracy are socially valuable – but just making kids spend long years in well-funded schools is not.
Don’t Blame the Guns, Blame the Schools
Today’s public schools already share many characteristics with prisons, yet the ‘answer’ some folks are proposing to the (statistically negligible) threat of school shootings is to make schools even more like prisons. Schools are an artificial environment that (much like a prison) forces kids to join gangs or cliques in order to avoid rejection and outsider status. Those who don’t fit in are subject to ridicule, abuse, and even brutality in some cases.