occasional reflections on culture & politics
I. When we speak (or write), does our positionality in this world matter? I recently stumbled upon a video in which someone expressed their ire against people starting a variation of a sentence like “I am speaking as an x person.” The position here – if I may simplify it as follows – is instructive:… Continue reading #199: Why Positionality Matters
I have been struggling with this for a while. Clearly, Joe Biden as President is an improvement in many ways over his predecessor, but he is certainly not perfect. In some ways, Trump may have had the right instincts on how to convince voters he could solve their problems, but the execution was dismal to… Continue reading #180: Let Biden Be Biden
You can hardly turn on the news today without being faced with manifestations of every possible disaster known to humankind: war, genocide, disease, famine, climate change, etc. Death and its precursors are all around us. How can you stay sane in such a world? How can we ever tolerate the presence of so much death… Continue reading #164: The Answer to Death is Life
As I said before, an apology needs to count for something. Will Smith apologized, Chris Rock refused to press charges, even to throw him out of the room. As horrendous as Smith's behavior was, he has recognized that. Can we move on please? Is not everybody allowed a lapse of judgement? Cancel culture is a… Continue reading µ08: Will Smith Apologized; Let It Go
In a world dominated by climate change and a still deadly global pandemic, we sometimes seem puzzled, annoyed, frustrated, depressed, angry and utterly confused. What is happening? Why is it happening? How could this possibly be what is going on? Welcome to the world in denial. We have believed that we can create a world… Continue reading #139: Nature Demands Humility: Lessons from Jurassic Park World
Some years ago, I talked with a person about conspiracy theories surrounding the terror attacks of 9/11/2001, during which Al-Quaida terrorists flew airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, with a fourth probably headed for the White House downed by passengers. The person was completely… Continue reading #135: Conspiracy Belief, Science, Ego and Humility
Whoopi Goldberg said something incredibly and shockingly ignorant about the Holocaust. She revealed, in fact, how a very peculiar and narrow understanding of race in America prevents a more thorough and global discussion of difference, discrimination, ethnicity, racism and genocide in the world. It is a wide-spread problem, and it was unfortunate to see it… Continue reading #134: If People Apologize for Their Mistake, They Should Not Be Cancelled
Most people who live with pets are able to somehow communicate with them. It’s not difficult. They teach you: all you need to do is to recognize that there is a little person in your animal just as much as there is in you. That little person speaks a different language than you, but you… Continue reading #129: Pets Teach Empathy and How to Live
I know, this is probably a very strange question, but I have been pondering on this a while. Are we anthropomorphizing human beings? Typically, those who really care about animals and claim that they are feeling, intelligent beings not so dissimilar from us, are being admonished not to anthropomorphize animals, not to treat them as… Continue reading #115: Are We Anthropomorphizing Human Beings?
There seems to be a narrative going around in some churches and religious communities that says, directly or indirectly, that we would not need to protect ourselves with masks and vaccines because God would save us. Any measure to protect yourself from the pandemic is thus construed as a sign of a lack of faith.… Continue reading #111: Faith, the Pandemic, and the Drowning Man
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