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Joe Duarte on American Dreams

June 5, 2006  ·  Category: Atlasphere, Individualism, Intellectual

Today my friend Joe Duarte published an eloquent column at the Atlasphere titled "American Dreams." In it, he explores ways in which certain dreams are more worthy than others. Recommended reading.

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Will the Internet Help Do Away with Entrenched Two-party Politics?

May 28, 2006  ·  Category: Current Events, Individualism, Intellectual, Politics

From an excellent article at Newsweek by Jonathan Alter, updating us all on the age in which we live and why it's going to prove significant during the next presidential election: Bob Schieffer of CBS News made a good point on "The Charlie Rose Show" last week. He said that successful presidents have all skillfully exploited the dominant medium of their times. The Founders were eloquent writers in the age of pamphleteering. Franklin D. Roosevelt restored hope in 1933 by mastering radio. And John F. Kennedy was the first president elected because of his understanding of television. Will 2008 bring the first ...

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Who Pays Taxes in the USA

May 24, 2006  ·  Category: Individualism, Politics

My friend Thomas Ryan Stone has a nice blog entry on the topic of who actually pays the vast majority of the taxes in the United States. He provides a link to a two-page report (PDF) from the congressional Joint Economic Committee. From Tom's summary: The top 50% of income earners pay a whopping 96.5% of federal income taxes, while the lower 50% pay just 3.5%. The top 25% pay 83.88% of federal income taxes The top 10% pay 65.8% (these are people with an adjusted cross income of about $95,000 or higher) The top 5% pay 54.4% The top 1% pay 34.3% (these are people with ...

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Quotes from ‘The Way of the Superior Man’

May 20, 2006  ·  Category: Individualism, Integral, Mindfulness, Personal, Reviews

I've been reading (sometimes re-reading) chapters from David Deida's magnificent book The Way Of The Superior Man on a regular basis lately. I often do this for a few minutes at night before heading to bed, as an opportunity for reflection. Below are few quotes that have been especially meaningful to me. In any given moment, a man's growth is optimized if he leans just beyond his edge, his capacity, his fear. He should not be too lazy, happily stagnating in the zone of security and comfort. Nor should he push far beyond his edge, stressing himself unnecessarily, unable to metabolize his ...

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‘The Good’ on Good Friday

April 14, 2006  ·  Category: Atlasphere, Individualism, Intellectual, Objectivism

The Atlasphere just published a holiday column by Editor Jason Dixon titled 'The Good' on Good Friday. It's an excellent article -- and today's required mudita reading. It begins: Around the world today, Christians are celebrating Good Friday — a commemoration of Christ’s crucifixion. Catholic and Protestant traditions alike offer special services on this day. Hymns, processions, reverence, and solemnity are the mainstays. I submit that this ritual is one reason for Christianity’s success. Not this particular ritual, but ritual itself, and the reverence that accompanies it. In philosophical terms, they provide a concrete symbol of an abstraction. In layman’s terms, they’re food for the ...

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On Objectivism and Living Well

August 17, 2004  ·  Category: Buddhism, Individualism, Intellectual, Objectivism

Will Wilkinson makes some interesting observations about Objectivism's failure to fully address the importance of human sociality. His observations correspond with some of my own observations recently about problems within Objectivism. For example, during the recent TOC graduate seminar, I made a point of asking each participant: "What do you actually do differently, now that you're an Objectivist?" Sure, Objectivism has changed how we think. But if there's no theory/practice dichotomy, then our behavior should be changing, too, right? For a "philosophy for living on earth," the answers I received were not particularly encouraging. Most people were hard-pressed to think ...

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Buddhism and Conservatism

August 13, 2003  ·  Category: Buddhism, Individualism, Politics

In response to my comments on the subject of Mudita and Individualism, Zen meditation instructor Craig Richards posted the following to Mudita Forum: I came across this paper today: "In what follows, we consider evidence for and against the hypotheses that political conservatism is significantly associated with (1) mental rigidity and closed-mindedness, including (a) increased dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity, (b) decreased cognitive complexity, (c) decreased openness to experience, (d) uncertainty avoidance, (e) personal needs for order and structure, and (f) need for cognitive closure; (2) lowered self-esteem; (3) fear, anger, and aggression; (4) pessimism, disgust, and contempt; (5) loss prevention; ...

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Mudita and Individualism

August 9, 2003  ·  Category: Buddhism, Individualism

Amod (whom I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, and who did not leave an e-mail address to which I can reply) left the following comment in response to my explanation of the title of my blog: Your site is a really interesting application of the idea of mudita, to say the least. I don't entirely agree with it, but I salute your creativity. Having studied some Pali, I would like to point you to one technical detail: the A in "mudita" is long and the I isn't, which means that (at least in Pali) it should be pronounced roughly with ...

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Reason and Awareness

July 9, 2003  ·  Category: Individualism, Intellectual, Mindfulness, Objectivism

A posting to Mudita Forum: In his excellent post on "Why you shouldn't believe anything I say," Craig Richards points out a number of profound examples of how we can be misled by our instinctive trust for thought. Here are my answers to some of his final questions. How can we know when we are able to trust our thinking? As phrased, this question could imply that there are instances where reason is fallible (and should not be trusted) and other instances where reason is infallible (and thus can be trusted). The latter is seldom the case, and yet we should ...

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On Being an Objectivist

January 9, 2003  ·  Category: Individualism, Intellectual, Objectivism, Personal

If you've not already done so, drop by and read Peter Saint-Andre's journal entry "Why I Am Not an Objectivist." I can identify quite a bit with Peter's perspective. Every few months or so, something will remind me how long it's been since I've read much (or any) Rand. And it doesn't bother me. I enjoy the mental freedom of looking at things from my own perspective, without the anger and the gravity of her personality. It's funny to notice this, and realize how much of a young person's (my young person's) sense of Objectivism was colored by Rand's ...

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