Lord Acton said, “absolute power corrupts absolutely” but is this accurate? Abuses of social and political power are the ones we worry about the most. Social science data does seem too, on the surface, bare out Lord Acton’s claims. However, if you correlate the degrees of corruption with degrees of centralization the data suggests things are not quite so simple.
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Professor Jordan B. Peterson is perhaps most famous for the neo-Marxist label “Postmodern Neo-Marxism.” Although Dr. Peterson recommends Explaining Postmodernism by Dr. Hicks, their analysis on this issue differs in some important ways.
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As a contributing factor, coffee (and tea) certainly gets credit on physiological grounds. Also contributing was the development of European coffee house culture, the coffee houses bringing businessmen, artists, and scientists together for drinking and socializing.
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Extreme cases always test our commitment to a free society. A free society depends on our general confidence in the power of reason, that people have intelligence and good judgment enough to handle the cognitive demands of living freely.
Yet now our current concerns with social unrest, triggers, and inflammatory language and images has led some social-media giants curating speech. Some history teachers have found their online course lessons on German history blocked because they contain archival footage of Hitler giving a speech or a Nazi parade. Thus the censorship debate has now become main stream.
We must decide as a society, should dangerous ideas always be allowed so that they can be confronted openly? Is sunlight the best disinfectant?
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Sex Dolls, Artificial Intelligence, and the Real Thing. Newly-engineered materials and robotics have made the physical experiences closer to the real thing, and artificial intelligence has enabled robots to respond verbally and non-verbally more realistically. let’s set aside the politics and focus on the ethics: Is sex with robots a good thing? a bad thing?
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This is an excerpt from a conversation between Dr. Hicks and Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, recorded on March 27, 2019 on the Jordan B. Peterson podcast. Dr. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of the multi-million copy bestseller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. In this episode, the professors discuss the origins of Explaining Post Modernism, its acceptance and increased awareness amongst the philosophers and the origins of criticisms. The professors agree to continue the discussion further as the seeds of a new enlightenments may be upon us.
To listen to the full interview visit the Jordan B. Peterson podcast RSS feed at www.JordanBPeterson.com
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Should Christians be socialist and was C.S. Lewis a socialist? What are the basic themes and commitments that are common to all forms of christianity?
Clive Staples Lewis was a British writer and theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University and Cambridge University He is best known for his works of fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles and The Problem of Pain.
Dr. Stephen R.C. Hicks expands on many of the views, philosophy and influence of C.S. Lewis in this episodes of The Open College podcast.
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Are reason and analysis under attack by scepticism? Why do post modernists focus on training and indoctrinating activist while ignoring some of the fundamental principals of education? If racial gender ethnic group conflict are the new principal of education what is the purpose of education?
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Did Steve Jobs fail to adapt himself to the system, or did the school system fail to fit Steve Jobs? A Japanese team of investigators recently came to the United States to study its school system. Japan is a successful nation, prosperous and dynamic in many areas. But the team had a question: Why does our country have so few innovators?
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Intellectual battles are the cognitive lifeblood of a healthy society. Life is complicated and the stakes are high, so thoughtful and passionate people have lots of arguments. Only by argument can we sort out the facts about complicated matters, however postmodernists seem not to fight by the same rules as the rest of society.
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