When Power Becomes a Burden: Cyclic Patterns of Crisis, Delegitimation, and Elite Exodus Introduction In the history of major social crises—wars, economic collapses, and political breakdowns—a recurring pattern emerges: the search for a “culprit” to swiftly diffuse systemic tension. This “scapegoating” mechanism does not explain the root causes of a crisis; instead, it […]
Networks threaten hierarchies – Sam Vaknin (Selected parts of the lecture: part 1; part 2) Because they are based on obedience, in hierarchies most people are not competent for their positions. Hierarchies disempower. In hierarchies, the main role of hierarchy is to take away your power. Networks empower. Networks give you power. Hierarchies take […]
What makes me the same person throughout my life, and a different person from you? And what is the importance of these facts? I believe that most of us have false beliefs about our own nature, and our identity over time, and that, when we see the truth, we ought to change some of our […]
Kristen R. Ghodsee (1970) is an award-winning Professor of Russian and East European Studies and a Member of the Graduate Group in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her articles and essays have been translated into over twenty-five languages and have appeared in publications such as Dissent, Foreign Affairs, Jacobin, The Baffler, The New Republic, Quartz, NBC Think, The Lancet, Project Syndicate, Le Monde Diplomatique, Die Tageszeitung, The Washington […]
For more than 1,000 years, the Imperial Family of Japan and its physicians have preserved a treasure of oriental medicine: the complete 30 scrolls of the Ishinhō, or the ‘heart of medical prescription’. This compendium was derived from sources in India, China, Korea and elsewhere, though many of the original documents have since been lost or destroyed. In […]
One morning in may, the existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom was recuperating in a sunny room on the first floor of a Palo Alto convalescent hospital. He was dressed in white pants and a green sweater, not a hospital gown, and was quick to point out that he is not normally confined to a medical facility. “I […]
Wherever you are in the world, visiting a bookshop is always a treat – but with their numbers dwindling, independent stores that offer something unique are increasingly becoming a destination in themselves. Last year we rounded up some of the world’s most weird and wonderful bookshops – from a bookshop opened by Alice Munro in […]
Britain’s most famous atheist is surprisingly low-key. The public Richard Dawkins – combative, outspoken, relentless – is, it turns out, a different beast from the private one. Anyone who’s witnessed a Dawkins intervention – on television, in print, or in 140 characters or fewer on Twitter – will have experienced him on fighting form: sure […]