Photo credit: R.M. Christie ~ ~ ~ What? Well, I was just thinking about how people deal with habits and addictions when either may have both pleasurable and self-destructive consequences. Some folks may be victims of another’s categorization, especially if it causes them to be ‘disappeared.’ Of course, categorization is a linguistic mechanization that is … More Categorical Consciousness: Imaginaries and Experience
Photo Credit: Pixaby When I first started this blog site over (OMG!!!) ten years ago—2014, I wrote a blog post titled, “Science and Society.” Those ten years seemed like two. So, I thought I’d go back and see how some of the earliest posts held up to the test of time. Of course, I would … More Science and Our Sanity: The Sequel
ALCATRAZ ~ It is not that we have no choice. But to choose requires conscious awareness of the situation as well as the alternatives and some ideas about how to achieve them. Some folks have difficulty making decisions and would rather have someone in authority make decisions for us. I think it was Theodore Adorno, … More Due Process vs Dictatorship
Political power disintegrates when the people withdraw their obedience and support. ~ Gene Sharp The Musk’s hyper-tech-bro ruffians storm-trooping through the federal government has moved as fast as phantom fairy dust from the Wicked Witch of the West. The initial response of widespread protest has moved fast too, but not nearly fast enough to have … More It’s Only the Beginning: Tyranny and Resistance
It still seems odd to be talking about a fascist coup in America. On the other hand, just as with the climate crisis denied, it would have been a lot easier and cheaper if we had faced it head on at a much earlier stage. Plenty of history provides clear understanding of how it all … More What Does It Mean to Resist a Fascist Coup?
Sometimes, it is very hard to understand certain minds, well, almost impossible. But there are clues. Psychology and psychiatry have certainly built a vast storehouse of knowledge about how people think about how they behave and how the way they live relates to others. But there is so much more, which is why we have … More Ignorant Indifferent Intelligence: Is It Artificial or Real?
Of course, in the United States and in other industrialized nations many people wish they were billionaires. That is what the culture of consumerism has taught them. Even the billionaires who turn out to be scoundrels at best, are idolized for their wealth however ill-gotten. The “greed is good” value system of ‘Gordon Gecko’ (played … More Energy Equity Requires No Billionaires
Image credit: NBC News. This post was first published on my new Substack platform, Illusions Transformed. The idea that economic growth is the road to progress is so ingrained in the minds of we ‘moderns’ that the growing disconnect between capital accumulation and human wellbeing is hardly noticed. Yes, we know about poverty, but the … More The Great Battle: Economic Growth vs. Human Wellbeing
Anyone who thinks our new and growing climate chaos is the ‘new normal’ (and assumes that we merely have to adapt), anyone who thinks that the “Trump transition” merciless administrative actions are the new normal, anyone who thinks that what they imagine is the ‘new normal’ has any relation to ordinary (normal) social change or … More The “New Normal” is Extremely Abnormal
What will it take to cause “shock and awe” over increasingly frequent and devastating catastrophic climate events? Consider this context: “The average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above preindustrial levels, data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows.” (see story in The Guardian, 1/10/2025.) Climate science predicts the devastating consequences clearly. Even so, LA burning becomes … More Charade: As Cities Burn, Perverse Politics Prevail
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 