Why are old Canadians so happy and young Canadians so unhappy? That’s the story the World Happiness Report (WHR) tells us. Every year the report is issued by a partnership including Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The report reflects an interest in
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Dead Wild Roses: Escaping the Woke Matrix – Michael Shellenberger
Michael Shellenberger lays out some of the societal ills we face today and some solutions as well.
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Why are we less polarized than the U.S.?
Witnessing the current state of affairs in our great neighbour to the south, the word polarization leaps to the tongue. In a previous post I suggested what we call polarization is really the right-wing of the conservative movement running off the rails into extremism. The current behaviour of the Republicans
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The secret is equity, not wealth
No society has ever created wealth like the United States. And no other society does today. Its dynamic capitalism with freer markets and smaller welfare states than other industrial nations puts its economy consistently in the lead. In 2022, the U.S. accounted for a full 58 percent of the GDP
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Jonathan Haidt – Strategies for Keeping Democracy Viable in the Digital Age.
The hopeful bits from Haidt’s essay in the Atlantic called Why The Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid : “Redesigning democracy for the digital age is far beyond my abilities, but I can suggest three categories of reforms––three goals that must be achieved if democracy is
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Should we teach history in the schools?
I confess to being a history buff. I am a member of Canada’s History Society who avidly reads each issue of the society’s journal, Canada’s History (formerly The Beaver) and I’ve been actively involved in heritage in my community. So the current debate about teaching history in the public schools
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives – Jonathan Haidt
Stepping outside one’s moral matrix is a difficult endeavour.
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The Doctor Who Fooled the World
I rarely do book reviews. Nor do I often suggest books to read. But every once in a while I come across one that is simply too good to just read, return to the library, and carry on without comment. Such a one is The Doctor Who Fooled the World
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Canadians’ progressive values trending up
Always on the alert for good news, my attention was piqued recently by some stats released by the Angus Reid Institute. The numbers derived from a study by Angus Reid in partnership with Government House and the Vancouver Foundation. The new study compared Canadians’ current attitudes on a number of
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Critical Race Theory Educators – Defend their Case.
Breaking down some of the CRT dodges and rhetorical flourishes you will probably run into if you get to discuss CRT with a believer.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Diversity Versus Excellence
More fact finding today – It is interesting the amount of discomfort I’ve felt while reading passages like this. We’ve all been inculcated, to one degree or another, on how important ‘Diversity’ is in our society, yet have we foregrounded the wrong concept? The pursuit of excellence though, if
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Critical Race Theory (CRT) – What it is.
One hears about the battle going on in the US to keep Critical Race Theory out of public institutions. Rather than relying media soundbites of what CRT is, I figured it was time to go searching for the definition myself. As with most academic literature sorting through the palavers is
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Nine Most Common Cognitive Distortions
Reading a new book called the Coddling of the American Mind by Gregg Lukainoff and Jonathan Haidt. Just started, but it has been very interesting so far as describes some of the less than ideal strategies we have have for making our way through society. Some of the maladaptive strategies
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Rule of Law – Alfred de Zayas
Making laws is never easy and Alfred de Zayas prescribes a mix that places human rights and dignity at the forefront. Our laws need to have simple and complex versions readily available to the public to improve our understanding of how the society we exist in works. “We also have
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Excerpt from Gender Transition by Ellyn Kaschak, Ph.D
Ellyn Kaschak, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita of Psychology, San Jose State University Watch out for Dr.Kaschak as she’s violated the first rule of Trans Club – You don’t talk about Trans Club… “The diagnostic of “gender dysphoria” actually came into existence as “gender identity disorder” and replaced the pathologizing
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Derrick Jensen – No, Your Feelings are NOT valid
An important tonic to anti material discourse. Plus, a cute cat in the video. “If your feelings are not based in fact, then they are not valid.” First 6 minutes are great. Kinda rambles in the middle though.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Latent Racism in the Better Homes in America Program
An interesting article over at JSTOR by Manisha Claire It reminds me that that the reality we live today were conscious choices that were made by people in the past. Part of the American zeitgeist is a strong emphasis on personal responsibility and ‘rugged individualism’. These qualities did not
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Infection Nature of Beliefs – Excerpt from Bence Nanay’s Essay
I do love readinng Aeon Magazine. This essay by Bence Nanay questions how much control we have over our desires in society. It is a fascinating question as I think the commonly held belief we all have is that we, as individuals, are ever-present and mostly unchanging over time as
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Women’s minds matter – Sally Davies
Popular conception of Mind is still burdened, to a certain extent, with the cloak of Cartesian Dualism. The notion that our brains are primarily computational/abstraction machines being transported around in a useful bags of flesh is strong heuristic model that, while providing clarity in many areas, often obfuscates our relationship
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