The Sutton Hoo ship burial provides a remarkable insight into early Anglo-Saxon society. It reveals exquisite craftsmanship and the existence of extensive trading networks, spanning to the Mediterranean Sea and beyond. It also proves that the world of formidable warriors, glittering treasures and great halls depicted in Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon poetry was not a […]
Unions have done a lot of good things for working people in America. Labor unions like the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and UAW helped to create the middle class. Because of all the benefits unionization has provided for working men and women over the years, Republicans have tried to demonize them as part of some vague socialist […]
There are a lot of really scared people in this country right now. They are terrified of immigrants and women and homosexuals; they fear science, diversity, Hispanics, Natives, Blacks — or even worse — mixed race people like me. Most of all, they fear change. They are worried that America will soon be unrecognizable, and […]
A growing body of research confirms that incompetence robs people of the ability to recognize their own stupidity. In other words: dumb people are too dumb to realize it. The Dunning–Kruger effect originates from a cognitive bias study conducted at Cornell University in which incompetent individuals were shown to suffer from the illusion of superiority, […]
To understand why the immigration crisis is such a controversial and contentious issue right now, it’s important to realize that mass human migrations on this scale are a very sophisticated tactic meant to increase radicalism and create terrorists on every continent. So many innocent people are victims on both sides of a conflict which they […]
The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of […]
LeiLane Nishime’s essay The Mulatto Cyborg: Imagining a Multiracial Future argues that SF cinema is so effective because it uses fantasy to tell stories about problematic social issues in our own reality. SF cinema can be more bold and take far more risks than if the story was set in the ‘real’ world. Effective SF […]
The USA is a dying imperial power: corrupt to the core, hollowed-out, lacking a soul and empty within. We are a brutal, overbearing nation filled with violent, desperate, shamelessly ignorant people. The Enlightenment (c.1680-1780) brought some hope of redemption to society following the Dark Ages. Applying the concept of humanism, philosophers recognized our innate capacity […]
Baroness Susan Greenfield is a renowned British neuroscientist and an outspoken member of the House of Lords. She is currently causing quite a stir in academic circles with her controversial book, Mind Change. Greenfield’s research adds fuel to the debate over the influence technology is having on society. She argues that the hyper-connectedness of millennials […]
The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the supreme achievements of Norman culture. Indeed, it is a monument to all of Western Civilization. The fact that it has survived nearly intact over nine centuries is nothing short of miraculous. Its exceptional length, the vibrancy of its colors, its exquisite workmanship, and the genius of its creation […]
Jason Darensburg's Blog-o-rama 