Howard Gardner - Multiple Intelligences
He recently (1999) proposed that there are naturalist, spiritual, an existential intelligences. Otherwise an extraordinary alternative to general intelligence.
William Tucker - Science and Politics of Racial Research
Outlines the history of how science has been used as a ruse for socio-politico agendas as it applies to showing innate differences in races. Wonderful debunking.
I just read a piece about the growing “chemtrails” conspiracy which variously claims that secret government or Illuminati planes spray poison on people from the skies.
Might be a good showpiece for analyzing how the conspiratorial mind works.
It’s amazing how many comments it drew in just a few hours (over 130!).
The Jan 27, 2009 article is here: http://www.alternet.org/environment/122849/?comments=view&cID=1117794&pID=1117735#c1117794
DJ, it’s about time you guys had Matt Dillahunty, from ‘The Atheist Experience’ show/podcast on the show (i’m actually surprised it hasn’t happened yet)
He’s such an articulate debater, he’d be a fascinating/entertaining guest :)
I’ve just gotten to know Marlene Winell, a psychologist from Berkeley, CA. She wrote: Leaving The Fold : A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion, and helps former members of authoritarian religions regain their footing. http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Fold-Former-Fundamentalists-Religion/dp/1879237512
There are thousands of such people in our society, and not many resources addressing their needs. Publicizing the existence of such resources on POI would be a real service.
I’d love to hear her personal story (she went through this herself) and her experiences with the people she helps. She organizes “Release and Reclaim” retreats all over the country. http://www.marlenewinell.net
As a topic on Point of Inquiry it would surely stand out because it’s not just philosophical musings but a stark illustration of the powerfully devastating impact religions can have on people’s lives, and what it takes to get your life back once you’ve been thoroughly brainwashed and socialized.
Just heard an interview with Ms. Moreton on Henwood’s “Behind the News” podcast. I think she would make a terrific guest, approaching the phenomenon American religiosity from an economic/social/political angle seldom explored on POI. She specifically takes issue with the influential theses of Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter With Kansas” - which falsely counterposes the culture wars and the Christian Right to the perceived economic/class interest of its mass base. Below is the blurb for her recent book:
Bethany Moreton’s To Serve God And Wal-Mart: The Making Of Christian Free Enterprise:
In the decades after World War II, evangelical Christianity nourished America’s devotion to free markets, free trade, and free enterprise. The history of Wal-Mart uncovers a complex network that united Sun Belt entrepreneurs, evangelical employees, Christian business students, overseas missionaries, and free-market activists. Through the stories of people linked by the world’s largest corporation, Bethany Moreton shows how a Christian service ethos powered capitalism at home and abroad.
While industrial America was built by and for the urban North, rural Southerners comprised much of the labor, management, and consumers in the postwar service sector that raised the Sun Belt to national influence. These newcomers to the economic stage put down the plough to take up the bar-code scanner without ever passing through the assembly line. Industrial culture had been urban, modernist, sometimes radical, often Catholic and Jewish, and self-consciously international. Post-industrial culture, in contrast, spoke of Jesus with a drawl and of unions with a sneer, sang about Momma and the flag, and preached salvation in this world and the next.
This extraordinary biography of Wal-Mart’s world shows how a Christian pro-business movement grew from the bottom up as well as the top down, bolstering an economic vision that sanctifies corporate globalization.
Just heard an interview with Ms. Moreton on Henwood’s “Behind the News” podcast. I think she would make a terrific guest, approaching the phenomenon American religiosity from an economic/social/political angle seldom explored on POI. She specifically takes issue with the influential theses of Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter With Kansas” - which falsely counterposes the culture wars and the Christian Right to the perceived economic/class interest of its mass base. Below is the blurb for her recent book:
Bethany Moreton’s To Serve God And Wal-Mart: The Making Of Christian Free Enterprise:
In the decades after World War II, evangelical Christianity nourished America’s devotion to free markets, free trade, and free enterprise. The history of Wal-Mart uncovers a complex network that united Sun Belt entrepreneurs, evangelical employees, Christian business students, overseas missionaries, and free-market activists. Through the stories of people linked by the world’s largest corporation, Bethany Moreton shows how a Christian service ethos powered capitalism at home and abroad.
While industrial America was built by and for the urban North, rural Southerners comprised much of the labor, management, and consumers in the postwar service sector that raised the Sun Belt to national influence. These newcomers to the economic stage put down the plough to take up the bar-code scanner without ever passing through the assembly line. Industrial culture had been urban, modernist, sometimes radical, often Catholic and Jewish, and self-consciously international. Post-industrial culture, in contrast, spoke of Jesus with a drawl and of unions with a sneer, sang about Momma and the flag, and preached salvation in this world and the next.
This extraordinary biography of Wal-Mart’s world shows how a Christian pro-business movement grew from the bottom up as well as the top down, bolstering an economic vision that sanctifies corporate globalization.
Excellent Balak!! Although the Wal-Mart denominator is a little too period. The dynamics behind what is said here extend far beyond Wal-Mart, The South, and even America. This is the true issue concerning religion. It is the issue which all other “wedge-issue” religious components are built for-to maintain a steady stream of willful adherents, righteously accepting low-wages, unsafe work conditions, and penny-ante “perks”.
It is most often combined with a provincial pseudo-patriotism which is used to devastating effect upon the collective mind of the fragmented labor mass.
Obviously, considering the pay-out such a “serf” system entails, not even the most seemingly reformist minded politikers will ever tamper with this Golden Egg Laying Goose.
We will continue to see the endless twaddling of such “issues” as gay marriage, abortion, ten commandments, muslim issues, jewish issues, prayer in schools and so forth!!
I’ve just gotten to know Marlene Winell, a psychologist from Berkeley, CA. She wrote: Leaving The Fold : A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion, and helps former members of authoritarian religions regain their footing. http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Fold-Former-Fundamentalists-Religion/dp/1879237512
There are thousands of such people in our society, and not many resources addressing their needs. Publicizing the existence of such resources on POI would be a real service.
I’d love to hear her personal story (she went through this herself) and her experiences with the people she helps. She organizes “Release and Reclaim” retreats all over the country. http://www.marlenewinell.net
As a topic on Point of Inquiry it would surely stand out because it’s not just philosophical musings but a stark illustration of the powerfully devastating impact religions can have on people’s lives, and what it takes to get your life back once you’ve been thoroughly brainwashed and socialized.
I second this suggestion and would like to add Dr. Valerie Tarico too. Both are very smart women with a lot of knowledge and experience to contribute about the subject.
I would like to make a suggestion for a guest. As a child, I remember watching John Coleman on NBC telling me the weather everyday of the week. Later, I found out that he was the founder of The Weather Channel. More interestingly, I also have heard him go against the grain on a very important topic of concern: global warming. He has been one of the leading spokesmen against global warming, and with hard science, he suggests that there is no such thing as global warming because weather is cyclical. He claims we do not have enough data to even determine that global warming is happening and all the data used to back the claim of global warming is insufficient and scientifically flawed. Temperature readings which support the evidence of global warming do not represent true average temperatures because most of these readings were taken in populous regions while the areas over the oceans and many unpopulated regions of the planet were never attained. I believe in reducing and perhaps eliminating pollution, but I do not think that people can have any affect on weather. Yes, we must worry about polluting our air because it is healthy for us but not because of global warming.
First of all, I really enjoy the podcast and the intelligent and stimulating interviews. I’ve been listening to at least one everyday!
What about Seth Shostak as a guest? He’s senior astronomer of the SETI Institute and host of the weekly radio show/podcast “Are We Alone?” which does a monthly episode called Skeptic Check, focused on critical thinking.
I know you’ve interviewed Jill Tarter of SETI (I’ve yet to listen to it:P) but Seth’s a witty, intelligent and fun guy (and also a skeptic) so thought I’d suggest him.
Barbara Ehrenreich has just come out with a new bookthat looks fascinating. She would make a great subject for POI.
Bright-sided How the Relentless Promotion of Positive
Thinking Has Undermined America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
A sharp-witted knockdown of America’s love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism
Americans are a “positive” people—cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity.
In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to “prosper” you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of “positive psychology” and the “science of happiness.” Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes—like mortgage defaults—contributed directly to the current economic crisis.
With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best—poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.
