Tag: Behavioural sciences

  • Four Wars Old

    Four Wars Old

    At least 90 Palestinian children have been killed by Israel’s assault on Gaza so far. This visual tella the story of Palestinian children in Gaza, who have experienced multiple assaults and multiple types of trauma since 2007, leading to a widespread mental health crisis among youth.

  • The Science of Superstition

    The Science of Superstition

    Orientation Examples of Superstitious Behavior Stuart Vyse is a psychologist and the author of one of the books I’ll be referencing called Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition. In that book he used his students as guinea pigs for his research on superstition. Before taking one of his exams Vyse found the following superstitions […]

  • Self-Identity and Conscientious Non-Compliance

    Self-Identity and Conscientious Non-Compliance

    What of our highly active, frenetic daily lives in the early 21st century? Substantial effort is expended in developing marketable skills, in order to earn money and survive. Yet, within the oppressive constraints imposed on us every day, each person may nonetheless nurture an inner, contemplative space, perhaps ultimately unshareable but all-the-more uniquely individual for […]

  • Evolved Homo Sapiens (and the frustrated “ID”)

    As we move further into the 21st century, shared delusions about human complementarity with robots, “artificial intelligence”– or even the bizarre fantasy of a forthcoming “trans-human” fusion with AI (Ray Kurzweil’s “Singularity” 1 ) — are becoming all-pervasive.  In a previous article, “Homo Sapiens: Not a Machine!,” I offered a trenchant critique of this growing […]

  • Authoritarian Sadism in U.S. “Foreign Policy” (Part 2)

    In the first part of this paper, Authoritarian Sadism in U.S. “Foreign Policy” (Part 1), Dissident Voice, July 25, 2023, I introduced some psychoanalytic concepts and explained their application in revealing the latent motivations of high-ranking policy-makers in recent U.S. presidential administrations.  This approach was long ago studied by the eminent political scientist Harold Lasswell, […]

  • Doing Nothing? In a Trance? Recipes for the End of Humanity

    From time to time, I read articles defying any semblance of rationality. They are, in a nutshell, absurd and some frightening. My immediate impulse to rebut is thwarted because I either missed the deadline to respond or no opportunity to comment exists. This article is my opportunity to rebut! I bear no malice toward the […]

  • Second-Hand, Third-Hand, Vicarious Trauma

    Second-Hand, Third-Hand, Vicarious Trauma

    I’ve been helping my friend from another country navigate the legal system, green card in hand, and a husband who attempted to suffocate her to death. The people in both camps — defense and prosecution — are interestingly together bedfellows, working the “system” hard, juggling which judge is this or that (pro- or con-), and […]

  • Why Marxists Need Darwin

    Why Marxists Need Darwin

    Orientation Most people who call themselves Marxists will tip their hat to Darwin and then move on. They laude his theory of natural selection for why species go extinct. They will support his gradualist theory that change is slow in the biological world. Of course, they will celebrate how humans evolved from the ape line […]

  • The Causes of Dogmatism

    The Causes of Dogmatism

    Orientation In part I of this series, following the work of Judy J. Johnson in What’s so Wrong with Being Absolutely Right: The Dangerous Nature of Dogmatic Belief, we identified dogmatism — not as the content of a particular ideology but as a process of thinking, emoting and acting. We distinguished dogmatism from fanaticism and […]

  • On Human Nature: Thinking, Believing, and Seeing

    What is our very nature as human beings? Philosophers, poets, psychologists  and other human beings ad nauseam down through the ages have addressed that question. Is it presumptuous or arrogant of me to chime in with my two cents? Or make it three cents since I will “only” tackle three attributes of human nature; thinking, […]

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