A comparison of three perspectives on technology and food production, Pamela Ronald, an advocate for the use of GMO’s to alleviate global malnutrition but not necessarily for profit, Robert Fraley (Monsanto), an advocate of big ag techniques as a way to feed the world, and Wendell Berry, advocate of traditional farming and local self-sufficiency and critic of big ag. … More “Frankenfoods” and Big Ag: Three Perspectives
A discussion of the book An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture by Block, Brueggemann and McKnight, especially on the idea of the fear of death causing the consumer addiction, the loss of which can be quite disturbing. … More Consumerism or Death: Memento Mori (Radical Christianity)
In this second part of a series on the book “An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture” by Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann, and John McKnight, we get into the foreboding wilderness of covenantal community and the scary idea of neighborliness. … More Radical Christianity: Contract vs. Covenant
Block, Brueggemann and McKnight are authors of An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture. In this video, I introduce their critique of today’s politicized and materialistic Christianity and begin to pose a radical break with the American entanglement of Christianity and the dominant civil religion. Here’s a link to An Other Kingdom: https://www.alibris.com/An-Other-King… Here’s Walter Brueggemann’s website: https://www.walterbrueggemann.com/ … More Radical Christianity: An Other Kingdom
Rousseau puts the finishing touches on his fictional pupil Emile, instilling in him a sense of a chivalry motivated by obtaining the sexual favors of Sophie, his arranged mate. But once married, disaster strikes–children die and Sophie has an affair in the big city, where they have sought distraction from their grief. … More Rousseau: Romance and the Big City
As a father of several children he more or less abandoned, Jean-Jacques Rousseau did not follow his advice, but perhaps his work Emile describes his ideal and not his reality. Rousseau begins to describe the education of a pre-teen and teenage Emile, he opines on why a boy should learn a manly practical trade like carpentry, how to teach him compassion, and how to deal with the strong urge to mate too early. … More Rousseau: A Young Man Should Learn a Trade
Rousseau’s philosophical novel Emile presents an education that is at once naturalistic and intensely manipulative. Rousseau is trying to create the bourgeois-proof kid, the anti-Locke, if you will. But can any education make a person incapable of bourgeois corruption? … More Rousseau on Education: Bourgeois-Proofing Your Kid?
A brief discussion of classical liberal theorist John Locke’s views on early childhood and youth upbringing and education, including some odd ideas like bathing kids in cold water and not feeding them regularly. … More John Locke on Parenting: Some Thoughts Concerning Education
Chapter 8 of Zizek’s The Year of Dreaming Dangerously deals with the HBO series The Wire and how the show succeeds in depicting how impersonal forces work to keep individuals from changing things but ultimately fails to envision an alternative. Zizek uses his analysis of the show to argue that in order to make radical … More Zizek on “The Wire”: The Year of Dreaming Dangerously (4)
A brief analysis of “The Return of the Evil Ethnic Thing,” a chapter in The Year of Dreaming Dangerously. We follow Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek as he analyzes the surge in right wing populism and tries to distinguish the source from the smoke-screens of ethnic and gender animosities. Along the way, we get a glimpse … More Zizek on Right Wing Populism: The Year of Dreaming Dangerously 3
Political Philosophy 