It’s true. I’m obsessed with trying to clarify the Big Picture, referring to the full view of our human situation not only inside our ethnic and national pocket cultures, but on the planet and across evolutionary time. Much of our difficulty at present, recurring through history as we tend to get snagged on the sameContinue reading “The Big Picture”
Category Archives: Philosophical Underpinnings
On The Way
The process of becoming somebody and finding our way to genuine community, which I regard as the evolutionary directive of our species, is a hero’s journey fraught with pitfalls and dead ends. If we were driven and determined by a force entirely outside our control, we would have arrived at our apotheosis [see definition 2] longContinue reading “On The Way”
Two Steps Back
Just now world leaders are telling us it’s time to close our borders and load our guns. With all the loonies and radicalized nut-jobs out there, we need to make security our highest priority. Inside our own nation, subgroups are putting tribal loyalty above the common good, as political parties, religious sects, and social classesContinue reading “Two Steps Back”
A New Hierarchy of Needs
Back when Abraham Maslow formulated his hierarchy of human needs, the science of psychology hadn’t yet clarified what I have come to name our subjective or “feeling-needs.” At that time the concept of need was still equated with a dependency on something external to the individual which is required for healthy development. As we moveContinue reading “A New Hierarchy of Needs”
On The Brink
For some reason I can’t stop thinking and writing about that conceited little blowhard who sits at the controls of our personal lives. I mean, of course, the ego – our separate center of personal identity. I understand why I’m obsessed, since both our historical rise as a species and our eventual self-destruction are tiedContinue reading “On The Brink”
The Path of Liberation
When you turn your attention outward you will notice that external reality is home to many different kinds of beings. There are other human beings like yourself, busy making meaning and managing their identities. You will also find other nonhuman animals who seem relatively free of the neurotic compulsions that afflict your species. Many ofContinue reading “The Path of Liberation”
The Five Facets of Meaning
The brand of humanistic spirituality I ascribe to regards human beings primarily as creators, and what we create is meaning. This brings in another key concept as it relates to meaning itself, which is that meaning is created – or constructed and projected – rather than intrinsic and merely awaiting our discovery in objective reality.Continue reading “The Five Facets of Meaning”
Thinking About Religion
Recently in the Wisdom Circle I attend we engaged a discussion on the difference between “inflexible” and “flexible” knowledge. Inflexible knowledge is when our understanding of something is fused to the particular example by which it was first introduced. We are not yet able to think of it abstractly – or in other words, apartContinue reading “Thinking About Religion”
Against Our Nature
In The Final Recession I described what I think is fundamentally at issue in our contemporary breakdown of democracy in America. It’s not the various issues that parties and individuals can’t seem to agree on, or that government has gotten too large for our own good. Instead, I argued, the current crisis – brought toContinue reading “Against Our Nature”
The Final Recession
Democracy is based philosophically on a belief in the fundamental goodness of human beings. Think about it: if you believe otherwise, that human beings are not basically good – i.e., prosocial, cooperative, and altruistic by nature – but rather selfish, malicious, and vengeful, then why would you support the idea of giving them the powerContinue reading “The Final Recession”
Tracts of Revolution 