Twenty-four centuries after his death, the words of Socrates can still unsettle an attentive listener. However, before we can understand his most famous dictum, we must clear away who we are not to grasp who we are—something only done when we are grounded in the fundamental relationships that are universal to humankind. Probably, the most [...]
Many Americans refuse to acknowledge that the United States has become an empire; however, virtually, no one doubts that America’s contribution to humankind is material prosperity for all founded on political freedom, technological innovation, and free markets, in effect, an empire of consumer goods and physical comfort. John le Carré, the acclaimed author of The [...]
That Americans cannot reach consensus on gun control, immigration policy, and climate change are symptoms of societal collapse, not from physical causes, such as the mindless destruction of a vital resource or a colder climate, but rather the splitting of a people’s storytelling into two opposed morality plays. The stable standoff between these two stories [...]
“I can’t believe it’s you!” Libby shouted. “Just don’t stand there. Turn around so I can see you.” Priscilla spread her arms straight out and slowly spun around so her friend could see the results of her complete makeover on the “Oprah Winfrey Show.” “I love that suit, and the rest of the outfit,” Libby [...]
In 1989, the double-slit experiment revolutionized understanding of matter: The universe is not deterministic as promulgated by the worldview of Newtonian physics. Surprisingly, the meaning of quantum physics, a most arcane subject, remote from human experience, in light of these discoveries, raises the most profound question a person can ask—“Who am I?” In January 1926, [...]
Charles Darwin’s notion of the survival of the fittest remains a sacred idea in science—no indeed, in modern Western culture. The imagined war of every organism against every other represents a profound enculturation of science, prejudicing theories and obscuring the facts. The evidence, however, clearly shows that nature is not competitive but cooperative. “Charles Darwin [...]
We have arrived at an astounding conclusion, at a complete reversal of the customary way most scientists and laymen understand Homo sapiens and nature: Our entire life is a consequence of human mind and Divine Mind, not of the interactions of little bits of matter. Mind is primary, not matter. In scientific circles, the suggestion [...]
Our capacity to grasp universals and natural laws sets us apart from the other animals, and, in that sense, we are apart from nature. Human beings in some mysterious way transcend space and time; through science, philosophy, and art, we rise above nature. We live in time, yet touch the timeless. Several years ago, Fortuna, [...]
Unprecedented in history is the development of the adolescent—a period of life in which one is isolated from childhood and maturity. Child-rearing practices vary from culture to culture, and many Americans are shocked to discover that the most turbulent period of their lives was a cultural phenomenon. The confusion, rebellion, and search for identity that [...]
François-Hubert Drouais (French, 1727 – 1775 ), Family Portrait, 1756, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection The good news is that we have to know only one thing, so life is basically simple. The bad news is that one thing is love, and that seems impossible to get right. Love is at [...]
We Americans are taught to maintain an inviolable spatial envelope, or imaginary bubble, around ourselves. But does our desire for individualism allow us to experience the world in all its concrete fullness? Like all Americans, even those with gypsy blood, my experience of space was determined by individualism. In the third grade, my desk, in [...]
For modern Westerners, nature is opaque, mute, transmits no message, and holds no key to existence. But in reality, nature reveals the supernatural; a rock is never merely a rock, or a bird just a flying machine, or a human being an animal that appears between one nothingness and another. Nature always expresses the transcendent. [...]
Through language, humans bring out the full potentiality hidden in matter, advance the building of bird nests and beaver dams to architecture and engineering, the gathering of nuts to farming, squawks and barks to music, and limited animal perception to the intellectual jewels of modern Western culture… In the history of science, the only event [...]
The storytelling of a tribe gives each member a common remote past, communal heroes to emulate, shared social rules, and an answer to “Who am I?” Editor’s Note: This essay is part of a series dedicated to Senior Contributor Dr. Eva Brann of St. John’s College, Annapolis, in the year of her 90th birthday. The [...]