I owe this comment to Dappolonia, who comments on this blog. Thank you! A gentleman called Marion Maneker, an art promoter, blogging on the Reuters blog site, recently opined that the German artist, Gerhard Richter, has “emerged as an artist whose work can be used as social currency (literally like the Swiss franc) to gain …
Continue reading ‘The futility of upwardly mobile striving’ »
In his new book “The Righteous Mind”, Jonathan Haidt argues as follows: Morality is not learned from parents, schools or friends, but is actually hard-wired into us as another item in the armoury of survival. The evolution of moral behaviour developed in groups of people . Groups of people support one another, reward cooperation and …
When I first read the title of the article on gated communities by Professor Edward Blakely (Washington Post April 8th, 2012), I thought “Yes, why not gated communities?”. Then I quickly realized my mistake. Yes, Epicurus would like us to live a quiet, stress-free life with a real or imaginary garden, entertaining friends with sparkling …
I have nothing against Jesus. Jesus was in the good old tradition of Jewish prophets and holy men, only he also gave a Sermon on the Mount that was full of good things that would meet the approval of all decent human beings. Mary didn’t say much, and Joseph apparently did nothing at all. We …
Continue reading ‘We are not hostile to Jesus of Nazareth’ »
Epicurus was one of the very first people to ever stress the importance of cooperation. Ever since then, whether Adam Smith, Hobbes, Milton Friedman or Dawkins, all tell us that human beings are selfish. In fact, this is not true, although those who are selfish do tend to run the show. Whether raising a baby …
