Thomas Jefferson on Political Disagreements
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”
Until I moved to North Carolina, it never struck me as odd that people talk about “April showers bring May flowers.” That nice little bit of rhyming doesn’t make sense down here in the south. Which made me think: but what would this phrase look like in different parts of the country? Here are my…
Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn relates the following from Einstein as one of his favorite all time quotes: “There are only two ways to live our life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” My thought: Can’t we live as if SOME things are miracles???…
In an article from the Atlantic last January, Joshua Lang wrote a wonderful article about the challenge of deciding whether surgical anesthesia actually makes people unconscious, or whether people remember parts of their surgery and are traumatized by them later. In the article, he quotes George Wilson, a Scottish chemist who had his foot amputated…
One of the more useful phenomena employed in psychological research is what’s known as “priming.” This idea is simple: get a thought into people’s heads, and it lingers, thereby affecting future thoughts. Hold a cup of hot tea while riding an elevator, and the next person you meet might seem to have a warmer personality!…
I do not pretend to have consistent, easily categorized political views. That’s why I call myself a “flaming moderate.” But one attitude I hold pretty consistently is suspicion of concentrated power—in government, in industry, and especially in government and industry! That’s why I felt a kindred spirit in Teddy Roosevelt, as quoted in Morris’s amazing…
David Brooks is a pretty solidly moderate conservative, and one who is a big fan of behavioral science. But that doesn’t mean he can see beyond his own biases, especially when describing the differences between conservatives and liberals. He was particularly offensive on May 7, in an article titled “Beyond the Fence,” in which he discusses…