Reading Time: 15 minutes One of my favorite Old English poems is called “The Ruin”. Written in the 8th or 9th century, this elegy ruminates on the structures of an ancient city, imagines what life might have been like for its occupants, and depicts its possible downfall. It is a reminder, for me, of the curiosity of those who […]
sociology
Posted inSocial Media
Is there any rock bottom to our crisis of authority?
Reading Time: 5 minutes It hasn’t been a great week for signs of species-wide maturity. In response to criticism for hosting disingenuous anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr. on his podcast, Joe Rogan called for vaccine scientist Peter Hotez to debate RFK Jr on air (because of course the court of public opinion is where science is properly reviewed and […]
Posted inBooks
The diverse human ecologies that shaped our earliest cities
Reading Time: 11 minutes Welcome back to Humanist Book Club. I’m a huge fan of deep-diving into history to grapple better with the present, whether in fiction or humanist essays, but last week we were dealing with a lot of living history, especially in the US, so this series on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity […]
Posted inHistory
The seasonal cycle of rigid human societies
Reading Time: 12 minutes Welcome back to Humanist Book Club! For the next few weeks, we’re tackling The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. It’s a huge text, but in our series opener I highlighted why I’d selected it: because this ambitious exercise in speculative anthropology, which asks us to imagine other ways to read human history […]
Posted inBooks
When philosophy is mistaken for field research
Reading Time: 12 minutes Well, folks, we’re diving into The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. If you missed our book club opener last Friday, you can always double back to see why we’re thinking about this 2021 work of imaginative anthropology, which explores the history of how we created our […]
Posted inBooks
Humanist Book Club: How we pre-engage with popular science
Reading Time: 6 minutes A year ago, I reflected on decolonizing our thinking around archaeology, and the immediate challenges posed by such an attempt. Although on one level it’s self-evident that the field has been informed by extremely biased (and racist) actors, secular folk like me rely on scientific positivism for so much in our lives that it can […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
‘No God? No good!’ How moral distrust drives anti-atheist prejudice
Reading Time: 12 minutes To understand why atheists might be seen as a threat, it’s worth asking what functions religion has served. The centrality of religion to cooperation and morality over cultural evolutionary time suggests that atheists might be seen as threats to those values. So how does that play out in individuals?
Posted inHealth
COVID-19 now haunts flu season: What other long term impacts can we expect?
Reading Time: 11 minutes It’s been a rough few days for anyone following flu season data. While China has eased zero-COVID restrictions in the face of protests, despite currently experiencing a surge in case count (along with Japan), North American hospitals face what the American Medical Association is openly calling a “tripledemic”: a wave of flu, Respiratory Syncytial Virus […]
Posted inLGBTQ News
Stochastic terrorism and the Colorado Springs Club Q shooting
Reading Time: 7 minutes Humans are highly suggestible. We yawn together. We laugh together. And when given a sense of belonging, of shared identity, we flock together. Sometimes in wonderful, constructive ways. Other times, in ways that drive us to a deepening hatred of our fellow human beings. Other times, into overt violence against them. In the US this […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
Eight billion of us: What does that mean?
Reading Time: 4 minutes November 15 is the UN’s estimated date for the eight billionth person to join the living human species. We might have hit that number a few days prior, or a few weeks ago. We might meet it tomorrow, or the day after. But some of we eight billion really like the feel of concrete dates. […]