Tag Archives: philosophy/religion

The Doubter’s Companion: Answers

Posted on January 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Answers: A mechanism for avoiding questions.

This might be called obsessional avoidance or a manic syndrome. It is based on the belief that the possession of an education—particularly if it leads to professional or expert status, and, above all, if it involves some responsibility or power—carries with it an obligation to provide the answer to every question posed in your area of knowledge. This has become much more than the opiate of the rational elites. It may be the West’s most serious addiction.

Time is of the essence in this process. An inability to provide the answer immediately is a professional fault. The availability of unlimited facts can produce an equally unlimited number of absolute powers in most areas. Memory is not highly regarded. Right answers which turn out to be wrong are simply replaced by a new formula. The result of these sequential truths is an assertive or declarative society which admires neither reflection nor doubt and has difficulty with the idea that to most questions there are many answers, none of them absolute and few of them satisfactory except in a limited way.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

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Motivation

Posted on October 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

“motivation: Factors within a human being or animal that arouse and direct goal-oriented behavior. Motivation has long been a central subject of study in psychology. Early researchers, influenced by Charles Darwin, ascribed much of animal and human behavior to instinct. Sigmund Freud believed that much of human behavior was also based on irrational instinctive urges or unconscious motives. Walter Cannon proposed that basic human drives served homeostatic functions by directing energies toward the reduction of physiological tensions. Behavioral psychologists, in contrast, stress the importance of external goals in prompting action, while humanistic psychologists examine the role of felt needs. Cognitive psychologists have found that a motive sensitizes a person to information relating to that motive: a hungry subject, for example, will perceive food stimuli as larger than other stimuli. See also behavior genetics, human nature, learning.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Concepts in Sociology: Animism

Posted on October 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on animism that I threw together for the sociology class I taught last year. I think I settled on this as a topic because I know, from experience, that it has tended to come up in global studies instruction the classrooms in which I have served–and it is a concept worth understanding.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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George Steiner on the Book

Posted on October 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

“The age of the book is almost gone.”

George Steiner

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Quetzalcoatl

Posted on October 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Quetzalcoatl: Feathered serpent, a major deity of ancient Mexico. Quetzalcoatl began as a god of vegetation in the Teotihuacan civilization. For the Toltecs he was the god of the morning and evening star. The Aztecs revered him as the patron of priests, the inventor of the calendar and of books, and the protector of goldsmiths and other craftsmen. He was also identified with the planet Venus and was a symbol of death and resurrection. One myth held that he was a white priest-king who sailed away on a raft made of snakes. The belief that he would someday return from the east led Montezuma to regard Hernan Cortes as the fulfillment of the prophecy.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Cultural Literacy: Quetzalcoatl

Posted on October 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

Alright, let’s wrap up this week’s documents posts with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Quetzalcoatl. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one short compound sentence and two questions. In other words, once again, the sparest of introductions to this important Aztec deity.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Aztecs

Posted on October 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Aztecs: Nahuatl-speaking people who in the 15th and early 16th centuries ruled a large empire in what is now central and southern Mexico. They may have originated on the northern Mexico plateau before migrating to their later location. Their migration may have been linked to the collapse of Toltec civilization. Their empire, which at its height comprised 5-6 million people spread over 80,000 square miles (200,000 square kilometers), was made possible by their successful agricultural methods, including intensive cultivation, irrigation, and reclamation of wetlands. The Aztec state was despotic, militaristic, and sharply stratified according to class and caste. Aztec religion was syncretic, drawing especially on the beliefs of the Maya. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice; in a particularly gruesome episode, 20,000-80,000 prisoners were said to have been killed in four days. The empire came to an end when Hernan Cortes took the emperor Montezuma II prisoner and conquered the great city Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City). See also Nahua.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Blessing Way

Posted on October 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Blessing Way: Central ritual in the complex system of ceremonies performed by the Navajo to restore equilibrium in the cosmos. Of the major categories of Navajo rituals, the largest group is the Chant Ways, which are concerned with curing. The Chant Ways include a subgroup of chants called the Holy Ways, which are further divided into the Blessing Way and the Wind Ways (used to cure illness). Lasting for two days, the Blessing Way is a simple chant performed for the well-being of the community rather than for a specified curative purpose.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Fisher King

Posted on October 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Fisher King: One of the chief characters in medieval legends dealing with the quest for the Holy Grail. The Fisher King was the keeper of the Grail relics, including the spear of Longinus used to wound Jesus as he hung on the cross. The Fisher King suffered from a wound made by the same spear. The wound destroyed the Fisher King’s virility and, by a sympathetic transference, turned his realm into a wasteland. A new and purer guardian of the relics, in the form of the Grail hero, must intervene (see GALAHAD). The task of the hero is not simply to find the relics themselves, which had been stolen, but also to free the king so he may die a peaceful death and bring life and fertility back to the king’s realm. See WASTE LAND, THE.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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12 Olympian Gods

Posted on October 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

Zeus (Jupiter) * Hera (Juno) * Poseidon (Neptune) * Aphrodite (Venus) * Athena (Minerva) * Apollo (Apollo) * Artemis (Diana) * Hermes (Mercury) * Dionysus (Bacchus) * Hades (Pluto) * Aries (Mars) *Hephaestus (Vulcan) * Hestia (Vesta)

The cult of six female goddesses paired with six male gods came to Greece from western Anatolia during the Iron Age, though the doubling up of a trinity of female goddesses, and then giving the appropriate male counterparts, was a familiar aspect of many ancient cultures. Hercules is first credited with organizing sacrifices to all twelve of the great gods who dwelt on Mount Olympus and the oldest such altar was associated with Athens. The precise names of the Olympian pantheon would shift during 1,000 years of worship, which is why thirteen deities have been listed. Hades, as Lord of the Underworld, was vulnerable to downgrading, especially in favor of Hestia/Vesta, while at other times Hephaestus could be exchanged for Hercules, and in the early period Dionysus held an equivocal position.

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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