Make Sense of the world
Unique insight from 2,000+ contributors in 80+ Countries
Business Insider attempts to make sense of the deep divide within the Democratic Party in the US that leaves those who identify as Democrats in a major metaphysical quandary, wondering not just about their identity but whether they have a claim to exist. In so doing, it demonstrates a problem...
Online radical-right extremist groups exhibit a massive range of ideological stances and approaches, which vary from country to country. These include the affirmed political stances of alt-right groups, the social movement-like practices of groups like Generation Identity, and the violent,...
When a government fails to meaningfully respond to the carnage in its streets, every citizen should question the competence and corruption of those charged with the governmental responsibility to act, as well as the legitimacy of the government itself. So it is, in the wake of the latest gun...
During the last two years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the news media focused on one story: the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The developing and probably lingering story that may dominate the news cycle for the remaining 18 months of Donald Trump’s first presidential term may turn out to be...
Author and editorialist Alan Weisman has reviewed Bill McKibben’s most recent book on the environment, “Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?” McKibben, an author-turned-activist, has been leading the campaign at 350.org to combat the resistance of oil companies to addressing...
“Adam und Evelyn,” a bittersweet German love story in the summer of 1989, captures both the promise and the peril of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Adam and Evelyn are an East German couple. Evelyn yearns to flee to the West. Adam is happy behind the Iron Curtain as a dressmaker. She leaves and...
Opposition to the postwar liberal world order seems like the new back to normal, as it is based on a natural impulse to shut out the feared “other” in order to be safe, rather than recklessly open and vulnerable. Neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky notes why this back to normal is natural and...
The HuffPost explores the question of whether, as Donald Trump and others have claimed, video games are responsible for the frequent mass killings in the US. We learn that Trevor Noah, a late-night television comedian, “introduced ‘The Legislator: License To Bill’ ― in which players try to...
Editor’s Note: Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy American financier, was found dead in his prison cell in an apparent suicide on August 10, 2019. He had been awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges, to which he pleaded not guilty in July. This article by Ellis Cashmore, author of...
The fashionable intelligence at The New York Times has declared sound baths are everywhere, and it’s true. Well-educated people like myself now routinely spend a couple dozen dollars for a few hours in a quiet room listening to ringing gongs, thrumming bowls and shaking rattles....
In the runup to the 2018 midterm elections, US President Donald Trump insisted that what was happening at the border should be thought of as an invasion. Hesitating between employing a metaphor or a simile, Trump said, “Some people call it an ‘invasion.’ It’s like an invasion. They have...
