Month: October 2022

Brain, Living, Psychology, ScienceLeave a comment

The Fine Line Between Life and Not Life

Fernando Kaskais

Lead image: Ryger / Shutterstock If the brain can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality, what can? BY PATRICK HOUSE Where does a consciousness end and the rest of the world begin? Where is the line between inside and outside? Between life and not life? Between the parts of the universe that are conscious and those that are not? Between you and not you? To build up a charge, a gradient, or natural selection, there needs to be some kind of a border, but physics and biology draw their borders differently. (Drop both a pigeon and a bowling ball … Continue reading The Fine Line Between Life and Not Life

Europe, History, Media&Culture, Philosophy, PoliticsLeave a comment

Medieval but not Christian

Fernando Kaskais

Known as ‘The Copenhagen Maimonides’, the manuscript of the Guide of the Perplexed was illuminated in Catalonia in the years 1347-48 CE. Courtesy the Royal Library, Copenhagen It’s shocking that histories of medieval philosophy celebrate only Christian thinkers, ignoring Islamic and Jewish thought Yitzhak Y Melamed is professor of philosophy and the Charlotte Bloomberg Chair in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. His books include Spinoza’s Metaphysics: Substance and Thought (2013) and Spinoza’s Labyrinths (Oxford, forthcoming). He is also the co-editor of the Gross Library of Jewish Philosophy, a new, 40-volume series of bilingual editions of medieval and early modern Jewish philosophical works. In 1989, … Continue reading Medieval but not Christian

Brain, Curiositys, Health, Psychology, ScienceLeave a comment

How Motherhood Alters the Brain

Fernando Kaskais

Visual: DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images In “Mother Brain,” Chelsea Conaboy draws on neurological and cognitive research to explore myths about parenting. BY ELIZABETH LANDAU WHEN HEALTH JOURNALIST Chelsea Conaboy told other mothers that she was writing a book about neuroscience and motherhood, they thought she would get to the bottom of the forgetfulness and disorganization they think of as “mommy brain.” In her words, “their own brain feels like Swiss cheese and the whole world seems to recognize their impairment.” But Conaboy’s book, “Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood,” goes far deeper. In an approachable, down-to-earth narrative … Continue reading How Motherhood Alters the Brain

Big Pharma, Brain, Health, PsychologyLeave a comment

Does antidepressant overuse hinder our ability to heal PTSD?

Fernando Kaskais

Antidepressants can help alleviate PTSD symptoms when paired with psychotherapy, but does our overenthusiasm for them blind us to more effective alternatives? KEY TAKEAWAYS by Kevin Dickinson Despite humankind’s intimate familiarity with tragedy and disaster, the concept of trauma has long confounded us. Throughout history, we’ve often attributed trauma’s toll to either a character flaw (the “cowardice” of shell-shocked soldiers) or a hereditary weakness (the many hysteria hypotheses of history). It wasn’t until the second half of the 20th century that we finally recognized this emotional and physical anguish isn’t the fault of the victim. In fact, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) didn’t find … Continue reading Does antidepressant overuse hinder our ability to heal PTSD?

History, Literature, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

Repentance, Repair, and What True Forgiveness Takes: Lessons from Maimonides for the Modern World

Fernando Kaskais

One of Aubrey Beardsley’s radical 1893 illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salome. (Available as a print.) “Sometimes we are hurt. Sometimes we hurt others, whether intentionally or not. The path of repentance is one that can help us not only to repair what we have broken, to the fullest extent possible, but to grow in the process of doing so.” BY MARIA POPOVA “To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt,” poet and philosopher David Whyte wrote in his reckoning with the depths of life. “Forgiving,” Hannah Arendt offered a generation earlier in her splendid antidote to the irreversibility of … Continue reading Repentance, Repair, and What True Forgiveness Takes: Lessons from Maimonides for the Modern World

Freak Religion, History, Media&Culture, Philosophy, Psychology1 Comment

The imperative betrayal

Fernando Kaskais

The mystery of why Judas forsook Jesus goes to the heart of Christianity. A newly translated gospel offers a new view David Brakke is the Joe R Engle Chair in the History of Christianity and professor of history at the Ohio State University. His books include The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity (2010) and The Gospel of Judas: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (2022). Why did Judas do it? The betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth by Judas Iscariot, one of his 12 disciples, has become the paradigmatic act of treachery in Western culture. Modern historians are sceptical of many and even … Continue reading The imperative betrayal

Art, Curiositys, Media&Culture, MusicLeave a comment

How Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of “imitatio” to write songs

Fernando Kaskais

Because Dylan “samples and digests” songs from the past, he has been accused of plagiarism. But imitatio isn’t the same. by Raphael Falco Over the course of six decades, Bob Dylan steadily brought together popular music and poetic excellence. Yet the guardians of literary culture have only rarely accepted Dylan’s legitimacy. His 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature undermined his outsider status, challenging scholars, fans and critics to think of Dylan as an integral part of international literary heritage. My new book, “No One to Meet: Imitation and Originality in the Songs of Bob Dylan,” takes this challenge seriously and places Dylan within … Continue reading How Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of “imitatio” to write songs

Brain, Curiositys, Health, Psychology, Racism2 Comments

What a Racist Slur Does to the Body

Fernando Kaskais

I cannot hear that word, used in that way, without thinking about violence. By Clint Smith Afew weeks ago, I was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Charlotte, North Carolina. Amid an airline ecosystem rife with cancellations, delays, and overbookings, I was relieved to find the trip relatively uneventful. The crew was on time, the pilots were accounted for, and the weather was clear—the sky a vast and uninterrupted blanket of blue. Charlotte is an East Coast travel hub, and when we landed, several groups of passengers had connections in the airport for flights that were already boarding. Anxious to … Continue reading What a Racist Slur Does to the Body

Curiositys, Freak U.S.A, Living, Media&Culture, USALeave a comment

Why Do Americans Own More Guns Per Capita Than Anyone Else?

Fernando Kaskais

Why do Americans own more guns per capita than anyone else? BY BRIAN GALLAGHER One question for Jennifer Carlson, a 2022 MacArthur Grant-winning sociologist at the University of Arizona and author of the forthcoming book Merchants of the Right: Gun Sellers and the Crisis of American Democracy. The legal structure makes it possible. The social structure makes it urgent. If you talk to people who own and carry guns, their number one reason for doing so is for self protection. This is really clear if you walk into a gun store and start talking to people. It’s very clear from the survey … Continue reading Why Do Americans Own More Guns Per Capita Than Anyone Else?

Fascism, Freak Religion, Hypocrisy, Manipulation, PoliticsLeave a comment

An unholy alliance

Fernando Kaskais

Authoritarian leaders who play the religious card are not mere hypocrites. There’s something far more troubling going on Suzanne Schneider is deputy director and core faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She is the author of Mandatory Separation: Religion, Education, and Mass Politics in Palestine (2018) and The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism (2021). Viktor Orbán reportedly does not attend church. Benjamin Netanyahu eats at non-kosher restaurants. New York libertine Donald Trump lacks all manner of evident religious virtue. Yet it is a fact that today’s crop of aspiring authoritarians invoke religious themes and … Continue reading An unholy alliance