Are conspiracies self-organizing, at least in part? In general: yes. There is no centrally-controlled conspiracy run by Satanic servants or omnipotent bureaucrats. There are networks of those who inherited wealth and power and those networks are sometimes refreshed by new blood of the ambitious and talented. There are also tightly organized operations with a specific … [Read more…]
I’ve just finished reading Norman F. Cantor’s Medieval History: The Life and Death of a Civilization and the ending pages on the decay of the High Middle Ages brought a few ideas into focus. He spoke of the destruction of the Thomistic “cathedral” of thought by the Franciscan radicals, perhaps outright heretics, led by Duns … [Read more…]
[In this essay, I’m suggesting a speculative framework and not any cures for these serious disorders of the human mind and soul. At the same time, this framework — if appropriate — would guide researchers and clinicians in developing palliatives or cures. Mostly, I’m pursuing my goal of understanding the human mind as the immaterial … [Read more…]
In this article, Steady Relationships Reduce Amphetamine’s Rewarding Effects, Animal Study Suggests, we learn: Long-term relationships make the commonly abused drug amphetamine less appealing, according to a new animal study in the June 1 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest that social bonds formed during adulthood lead to changes in the brain … [Read more…]
This is a very important line of thought and research which underlies this short article: The Ties That Bind: Grandparents and Their Grandchildren. Knowing that research in traditional societies in the undeveloped world had shown that children’s health and longevity were improved greatly when they were under the care or supplemental care of grandparents — … [Read more…]
You have weight when you’re not in free-fall, that is, you have weight when you are kept from traveling the shortest path, or geodesic geodesic, from your current location to the center of gravity of whatever system you’re in. When you’re weighed down, by your own bodily mass or that of other entities you are … [Read more…]
I’ve recently reread Kenneth Minogue’s The Liberal Mind and might be publishing some articles over the next few weeks on thoughts that book raised. For now, I’ve got to address the question in the title, “What is politics?” from the viewpoint of my effort to enrich and expand our understanding of the Body of Christ … [Read more…]
Paul Gottfried is a political scientist always worth reading, his books and his short writings on the Internet. In this article, What Drives the Religious Right , he made some good points about the nature of the religious right, predominately Evangelical Protestant though I know some Catholics who’ve taken up with their way of thought, … [Read more…]
This is just a short addendum to an earlier blog article: Freedom and Structure in Human Life — What is a Conspiracy?. At the time I wrote that earlier article, I was looking unsuccessfully on the Internet for some overview articles I’d read, articles written by Murray Rothbard, a good, thorough, and reliable scholar so … [Read more…]
The New American has published an interesting article written by Sam Blumenfeld and dealing with the American transistion into our current state of dumbness defined by just enough literacy to read advertisements and to struggle through textbooks written to the purposes of the leadership of the day — Looking Backward 123 Years Later I knew … [Read more…]