This and that to start your year. – Ian Welsh comments on the challenges we face in trying to turn wealth increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few into a better world for everybody: The irony is that we have, again, produced a cornucopia. We have the potential to
Continue readingTag: Psychology
Scripturient: Blog & Commentary: Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness can be a difficult read. Not just for its brooding setting and the sense of morbid inevitability. Conrad’s semi-autobiographical 1899 novel is replete with racism and breezy colonialism: the insufferable superiority of white, Western culture. The casual ability of so-called civilized men to commit savagery in the name of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Wray Herbert examines Lukasz Walasek and Gordon Brown’s work on the psychological links between inequality, status-seeking and reduced well-being. And Linda McQuaig writes about the harm increasing inequality has done to Canada both economically and socially: (The OECD’s recent) report puts actual
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Ferguson?
If there’s anything you can learn from Ferguson this morning, it’s that we need to check our race- and class-based social, political and economic entitlements. It’s the least we can do this morning. "If racism is something you're sick of hearing about, imagine how exhausting it must be living it
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Crazy Cats and Brain Parasites
It reads like a script for a scary movie: an alien parasite invading our brains, taking control of our minds, changing our behaviour silently, secretly; making us do what it wants. And it’s happening now, in homes across Canada and the USA. Alien puppet masters over-running the nation, one household
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Timothy Leary Was Right. Maybe.
This is your brain on drugs. Or rather, the right-hand image is your brain on psilocybin. The other side is your brain on a non-psychedelic drug. Researchers recently discovered some amazing facts about how our brains work on some chemicals. And some psychedelic drugs prove to have pretty amazing effects.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Are Your White Male Entitlements Maiming Your Vote this Month?
I’m not going to argue that using an Intersectionality lens in the municipal election in 2 weeks will make your voting choices perfectly easy. But I will say that your white male entitlements have likely contributed to worse choices in the past. Including not voting. When you read this entire
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Words, Your Brain and Sex
One of the reasons I’m a dedicated librocubularist* can be found in a story on IFL Science that is headlined, “Learning New Words Activates The Same Brain Regions As Sex And Drugs.” It opens: While it doesn’t get much better than sex and drugs for many out there, new research
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: “A” Personalities: A Theory
When someone tells me he is an “A-type” personality, I cannot help but think of the title of Aaron James’ bestselling book: Assholes *A Theory (Anchor Books, New York, 2014). After all, what else would the “A” stand for when someone boasts to the audience he is an alpha male
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: White Privilege and Entitlements, On Acid, Sans Irony
I’m white, so I’m qualified to explain that white privilege and entitlements don’t exist? So shut up? Enjoy the stupid, ignorant, red herring cultivating and watch the white host infantilize and berate the non-white guy. So Sun TV recently decided to convene a panel to debate whether or not “white
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How to Not Commit a Sex Crime
You participate in a sex crime if you search for or look at revenge porn. It is really that simple. A Richmond, B.C., woman hopes her story of having nude photos leaked online will foster laws to protect women against cyberbullying. Anisa Salmi was working at her desk when she
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Utility Animal
In the July/August edition of Pets Magazine (the Cat Care issue) there are two articles that caused me concern. One is “The Loyalty and Bravery of a Cat” (p.28), the other is “Quick-Thinking Cat Saves the Day.” (p.26). The latter is a pet profile from the Purina Hall of Fame
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Linda McQuaig discusses how a politically-oriented audit of the CCPA fits with the shock-and-awe part of the right’s war against independent (and public-minded) though: In the conservative quest to shape public debate in recent years, no tool has proved more useful than
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Whelp – Conversion time for me…
Religion plies its trade in fear. Thank you khaki dude for providing such a clear example. Filed under: Religion Tagged: Fear, Humour, Psychology, Religion, Satan
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Ethos – a 2011 Documentary
“Our ethos is all that we currently hold to be true. It is what we act upon. It governs our manners, our business and our politics.” – Howard Zinn Directed by Pete McGrain, and hosted by Woody Harrelson, this 68 minute film explores how we got here and what to
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Tricks of the mind
Reading involves bit of trickery. Mental trickery. It engages the imagination and fools us into thinking we are there within the book: nestled beside the author, or better yet, beside the characters. Immersed in the created world, floating through it like a ghost in a haunted house movie, or perhaps
Continue readingThings Are Good: Live in the Now, Plan for Your Future Self
There are many things that make one happy, but what if our fundamental approach is wrong? Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert looks into other ways of thinking about happiness and the overall take we have on our self. “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” Dan Gilbert
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Bert Olivier is the latest to weigh in on Paul Verhaeghe’s work showing that the obsessive pursuit of market fundamentalism harms our health in a myriad of ways: What does the neoliberal “organisation” of society amount to? As the title of the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: TFWP: How Racist is Canada?
Here’s one way to tell how racist a person/nation is. Have them read this excerpt and see if they fly into a rage about “those” people, or just come up with economic arguments to keep “them” out. Hopefully, everyone you know will nod and say, “obviously!” Since this is a
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Class Warfare CAUSED Income Inequality, Not the Opposite
Horatio Alger mythology is designed to make us leave the 1% alone and shut the fuck up. If you haven’t yet seen John Oliver’s amazing rant about the perils of inequality and how the rich shame us out of talking about it by suggesting we’re trying to invoke class warfare,
Continue reading