Very nice review in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. I have to point out I am an Editor Emeritus of that Journal, but have nothing to do with it these days.
Continue ReadingReality and Democracy
The craziness of life in the US has abated a little following the inauguration of President Biden, but its causes still lurk in the background, but not far below the surface. Faced with a serious attack on our democracy, we are told by the pundits that our institutions held and we were saved (at least for now). Perhaps, but the institutions that hold us together are really in trouble. Institutions are nothing more than linguistic creations. We tend to talk only about the very big ones, but we exist within many, many of them. In today’s highly technocratic society, we… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Divided Brain in Action
I have just finished reading My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor in which she describes having and recovering from a serious stroke. I have been aware of the book and the main plot line of her remarkable story, but hadn’t realized its close tie to McGilchrist’s work. She is not mentioned in his tome, but should have been highlighted, as she is a living example of his brain model. This post is quite long, but is worth reading right to the end. Taylor has a serious stroke involving the left-brain hemisphere that impaired her ability to walk, talk,… Read More
Continue ReadingFinding Something Good in Covid-19
Everyday more bad news. Deaths around the world have reached into the hundreds of thousands. Economies have shut down, leaving millions unemployed. I was born in the middle of the Great Depression, and certainly never expected to see anything like that again. But here it is. One might ask of anything good can come out of this crisis. The best answer to that question that I read about is some return to normalcy. But when and how close to the old status quo is a big unknown. Fewer people are asking a related question, “Why should we return to the… Read More
Continue ReadingA Crisis Is a Terrible Thing to Waste.
Not since WWII has there been such an opportunity for self-examination and behavioral change. The COVID-19 pandemic poses the same unsettling force to societies around the Globe, with one big difference, the enemy is not some other nation, but an invisible, still mysterious force. If the US is an example of what is being done in other nations, the immediate responses have been to isolate individuals to slow down the spread of the virus and pump money into the economy to soften the blow, caused by the first step. As I write this, the number of cases of COVID-19… Read More
Continue ReadingMy New Book Is Now Available
Finally, my new book, The Right Way to Flourish: Reconnecting with the Real World, has arrived at booksellers. The best deal, right now, is at the publisher’s (Routledge) US website. It is available on Barnes & Noble and Amazon’s UK sites. It can be ordered from Amazon (US) with availability coming as soon as the have a supply of the books. The Right Way to Flourish combines my previous work on sustainabilty-as-flourishing with a remarkable model of the brain to open new paths toward a future where humans and the rest of the Planet will flourish. Here’s the jacket description:… Read More
Continue ReadingPragmatism and Hope
I continue to read Rorty and have just discovered a critical link between pragmatism and hope that I missed when I ended my book, Flourishing, with a chapter on hope. At that point I was grappling with Andy Hoffman’s questions about the differences between optimism and hope. Hope can stand on its own feet, but becomes clearer when the connection to pragmatism is made. Let me start with a few lines from Rorty’s book, Philosophy and Social Hope: If there is anything distinctive about pragmatism it is that it substitutes the notion of a better human future for the notions… Read More
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