Category: Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head

We’ve got change in the White House. And in the tennis ATP rankings. A change in Madonna’s marital status, too … for what that’s worth. Not that those last 2 mean much. And whether the first is truly meaningful remains to be seen, doesn’t it? One thing is clear, though … there’s not much change

It’s still hitting us hard. Markets are down, foreclosures are up. Shanty towns are springing up in southern California. We’re officially in recession, it appears. And what got us here varies depending on which side of the political argument you listen to. The only problem with that is … it’s a little difficult to get

It's not the first time we've seen big money bailouts in our economic history, of course. Financial crises have been with us since the stock market was invented. But let's not forget that everytime the market struggles, there's a ton of money pumped in to shore it up. Public money. But this time, there's a

We've been in the dark about ourselves for a long time. But writers and thinkers from Homer to Schopenhauer have always known there was something powerful going on below the surface of our demeanor. "There's daggers in men's smiles," as Shakespeare put it. But with the help of a brilliant Brazilian psychoanalyst, the way is

We're conditioned to it now. We're stressed because of work. We're shy because our family's shy. We're sick because there's a nasty flu bug going around. We vaccinate. We medicate. We pop vitamins and supplements to pump up our besieged immune systems. We're burned out and fed up. Because of what's going on outside. There's

It flows inexorably underneath the American personality. Look on the bright side. On the sunny side of the street. Let a smile be your umbrella. That positive, can-do attitude has accomplished much. Why, then, do we have so much depression? There is much value in having a positive attitude, but the whole story is a

As we've explored before, it was Aristotle who led the compartmentalizaton of science into all its disciplines. He oriented us away from Plato's more universal perspective to looking down to the senses for understanding reality. It was a significant mistake, and in case you've never given any thought to how philosophy drives science, strap yourself

It's a dream almost as old as mankind. A yearning for a return to a golden time. A flowering of all that is magnificent in the human soul. All religions guard the prophecy. Philosophies centuries of years old carry whispers of it in their writings. A time we lost once ... but are on the

The mythology says there's a free hand of benevolence calming or cajoling the marketplace. But it seems that's mostly dogma. Economics is a theology, guided by whatever belief structure is in vogue in the brokers of power of the moment. And for most of recorded history, those powerful have not been our friends. Today on