Blog 3 Columns

Reading Philosophy on Your Own 0
- Uncategorized
- December 30, 2015
Reading philosophy can be tough-going, and ideally, you have an expert to help you through it – at least initially. However, philosophy now has a diminished role in modern curricula, leaving most people to fend for themselves if they want to gain familiarity with the Western philosophical tradition. For those who would like to venture
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Orwell’s “1984” One of the Bestsellers in Russia in 2015 0
- Politics
- December 30, 2015
Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, some have accused Russia of slipping back toward totalitarianism. Which is why some news outlets see significance in the fact that George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel 1984 was one of the bestselling books in Russia this past year. Paul Gobel at the blog Window on Eurasia writes, “Russians
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Mass communication promotes mass conformity 0
- Culture
- December 30, 2015
Surely it’s obvious that we live in a mass communication world. What may not be obvious to those of us in the 21st century is that this has been going on for a long time now and the consequences were foreseen way back when. In The Rape of the Mind (1956), Joost Meerloo digs into the
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Is Archaeology Increasingly Proving the Bible to Be a Reliable Source of History?0
- December 30, 2015
While looking through headlines the other day, the opening of one in particular caught my eye: “Archaeological Discoveries Prove Jesus Existed.” Clicking through to the article, I found an interview with author Robert Hutchinson, who describes recent archaeological discoveries which he declares lend credibility to biblical accounts. According to the article: “One of the main
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Instant New Year’s Resolutions from Ben Franklin 0
- Culture
- December 30, 2015
Ben Franklin once said, “Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.” This little ditty is heavily quoted during this time every year as people make their goals for the coming year. But what many may not realize is that Franklin’s famous quote is part of a longer list of 13
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Bestselling Books: 1915 vs. 2015 0
- Culture
- December 30, 2015
Below are Publishers Weekly’s lists of the bestselling books from 1915 and 2015. As you might notice, in 1915 the bestselling books all belonged to the fiction genre: 1915 Bestsellers 1. The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington 2. A Far Country, Winston Churchill 3. Michael O’Halloran, Gene Stratton Porter 4. Polyanna Grows Up, Eleanor H. Porter
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A Job Listing That Confirms Our Fears about Americans 0
- Culture
- December 30, 2015
The Huffington Post unearthed a humorous gem in the want ads the other day. Posting on JournalismJobs.com, a small town Idaho newspaper owner named Dan Hammes offered a reporter job to an individual “who reads.” The description declares: It goes without saying the person we hire will be able to write, spell and edit. What
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Why We Live in a World of Propaganda 0
- Culture
- December 29, 2015
Among many of Intellectual Takeout’s audience members, there seems to be a presumption that most discourse today is some form of propaganda. Here are three reasons for this presumption, and why it might be grounded—at least in part—in reality: 1) Our technological society. In Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, philosopher and
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Why does evil triumph?0
- Culture
- December 29, 2015
There’s a popular, internet quote attributed to Edmund Burke that you’ll see people of all political stripes use with some frequency: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” While the sentiment may be somewhat true, the attribution of the quote is not. Nonetheless, it’s a worthy point
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Reading Philosophy on Your Own 0