Haidt & Mooney, Moral Foundations & Spiral Dynamics

This post is the third in my series about Haidt’s newest book, The Righteous Mind (here is the previous post, second in the series). I was watching a video of Jonathan Haidt speaking about compassion in respect to the moral values of liberals and conservatives. I’ve already criticized Haidt elsewhere in the first post in the series (basically, Haidt [...]

What is Fair? Who Decides? Why Should We Care?

What is Fair? DrAnthonysBlog “Funny thing is, for a word that most of us are very familiar with, many of us would be hard pressed to define fair in a way that others would readily agree with, though we can spot it in an instant when we see it!  Also, regardless of your definition, many [...]

God & Freewill, Theists & Atheists

God and freewill, two things that will forever perplex me. I see them as basically on the same level, theological concepts. God is the faith of the theists. And freewill is the faith of the atheists. I don’t mean this in a necessarily dismissive way. I actually am affirming the notion of faith. We humans aren’t [...]

Origin of American Diversity

As a typical under-educated/mis-educated American, I’ve felt compelled to educate myself about American history, especially the complexities of early American history. As a descendant of Europeans from many generations ago, I’m interested about the early immigrations during and after the colonial period. Specifically as a descendant of non-English immigrants, I’m most focused on the ethnic/cultural [...]

Jonathan Haidt’s Liberal-Minded Anti-Liberalism

Jonathan Haidt wrote a new book, The Righteous Mind. I haven’t seen the book, but I listened to an interview by Bill Moyers. I recommend checking it out. Haidt does have an insightful view, although I think his view would be even more insightful if he synthesized his own research with other psychological research about [...]

Fear of the Future: Against Progress

I was wondering about why people support certain things that seem against their own interests, even their own openly stated interests. What made me think about this today is a Pew poll: Lower-Income Republicans Say Government Does Too Little for Poor People “Mitt Romney’s statement that he is focused solely on the problems of middle [...]

Dark Imagination

The Darkness. The Blackness. The Dark Mother. The Black Goddess. All Devouring. All Giving. She who is the Blackness, the Emptiness, the Void. Ancient memory, bodily impulses, guts and groin. Deep in the Earth, the Womb of the Mother of us all, the Virgin Mother. Caverns where all light is extinguished, where the force of [...]

What is a Church? Soul vs Spirit

This post is third in a series, but it is more narrowly focused than the previous posts. I wanted to isolate a single issue that I presented in my first post: “Many people have a nonchalant attitude about community. They just don’t understand its value or they don’t appreciate how difficult it is to create and maintain. This is [...]

Culture As Agent of Social Change

I’ve become aware of a particular conflict that hides a deeper issue. There are the partisans who often promote the view of voting for the lesser of two evils or else they promote the personality cult of a particular politician, the idea being that the right party or the right politician can save us from [...]

Ownership & Citizenship, Economic & Social Justice

Here is a nice analysis from a more anarchist viewpoint: Alternative View: The Just Third Way BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE by Norman G. Kurland, President, Center for Economic and Social Justice “Power exists in society whether or not particular individuals own property.  If we accept Lord Action’s insight that “power tends to corrupt [...]