danisaad
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Put retired profs to work
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Some time ago, in a study analyzing the central values undergirding North American life, the late Robert Bellah and his colleagues argued that rampant individualism had become cancerous. It cuts us off from responsibility for the common good and from deeper sources of meaning in our lives of work. According to the authors, universities have…
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The power of music in comparison to sex
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There is more pleasure to be derived from music than from sex. A Stanford University professor analysed the responses of many and found 96 per cent experienced thrills in response to music, far exceeding the rate for the expected thriller – sex. The respondents told Dr. Avram Goldstein, musical passages gave them greater thrills than…
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Limits of Reflection
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I have always valued what Socrates recommended — the examined life, the reflective life; to turn inward, thinking about how we might improve ourselves and improve the state of the world as well. Certainly nice thoughts, but does reflecting on past behaviours and modifying future behaviours really do us, or anyone else any good? Pulitzer…
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Living in the now puts future generations at risk
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People of today are thoroughly modern; we are compelled by the new and toss the old into oblivion to make room for the new. Anti-historical or at least ahistorical, we often ignore the past or we revise it to fit our vision of the future. The immediate danger is that in the worship of the…
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Poverty is present
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The New York Foundling Hospital opened in 1869 in response to the alarming infant-mortality rate and is one of the oldest social service agencies in North America. It was designed to address the needs of women in poverty. In 2013, we hope we have a gentler, more caring society. But do we really? Our child…
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The stigma situation
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Severe mental illnesses cut with a double-edged sword. On one edge are the biological and social factors that affect the course, which can lead to psychotic symptoms, diminished social competences and depleted social networks. The other edge of the sword is the stigma, leading to prejudice and discrimination. Such a stigma may be as damaging…
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Liberal arts an important discipline
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Certainly no one needs to remind students that job hunting and employment opportunities are not exactly rich in these recession-prone times. And for me, a very outspoken advocate of liberal learning, such a state does not bode well for students of the humanities. Students feel that they must study a discipline that can lead rather…
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City of Waterloo: intelligent or wise?
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A prominent characteristic of our age is the speed with which we have pushed outwards the boundaries of knowledge. There have been more scientific, technological and social changes in the last 75 years than in all preceding recorded history. But, while the human intellect has been straining forward to gain greater control over the “phenomena…
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Pressures of university unnecessary
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The university system has become a pressure cooker. Students are pressured to be admitted, to be academically competitive and to take the right courses. Students face the pressures of tuition hikes, stress of living in student ghettos and experience parental pressures. They might appear jovial while hurrying to the library or weight room, sipping their…
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Beauty privileged in the workplace
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Defining beauty is like “corralling a cloud.” Yes, it might be difficult to define, but we sure know it when we see it, or at least think we do. In every age and on every continent, we have searched for beauty. A relief on the tomb of the Egyptian nobleman Ptahhotep shows him getting a…
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The Tie That Binds WLU Since 1926
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