I overheard two depressing conversations recently. One was on the streetcar, where a man was introducing his companion to another friend. The companion asked the friend, “what do you do?” and she replied, “I’m in development. I work for a company marketing solar panels.” The other conversation was in a coffee-shop, and one fellow was […]
Our everyday perceptual life is a back and forth exchange with the environment that is characterized by, among other things, a constant novelty in our awareness—I find out, through perception, that a man is arguing with his daughter in that house, but I didn’t know that until I came upon the scene and heard them […]
In North America, we commonly buy gifts for our close friends and associates at Christmas and on birthdays, and anticipate in return that a similar group will send gifts our way at the appropriate times. We can feel it, probably as a slight, when we do not receive a gift from a close friend, and […]
The issue of “getting it right” is an important one in human life. This notion of “right” however, can be interpreted in a number of different ways, and it makes a great deal of difference how we understand this notion. It makes all the difference whether we “get it right” about “getting it right.” If […]
Though there are smaller examples from earlier times in history, it is the British East India Company that is usually thought of as the first great “joint-stock company,” and it is shortly after its founding around 1600 that the “stock market” began in Amsterdam. The basic idea of the joint-stock company is simple: a number […]
We often have a sense of pride in a product that we have made, and the effort we put into forming the thing gives us a sense of ownership. After years of practice with the soccer ball and the playing field, I feel on the “inside” of soccer, I feel that soccer is “my thing.” […]
In his dialogue Lysis, Plato gives a nice description of a very familiar human experience. Lysis, a young teenage boy, would like to come over to join a conversation that Socrates is having with some others, but he is too timid to do so. When his friend Menexenus arrives, however, he feels able, in the […]
Apparently, some urban elementary schools now encourage their 12-year-old students to “go out for lunch,” that is, to get together in small groups and go out to purchase their lunchtime meal at a nearby downtown restaurant. When I first heard this, I was surprised, and my first thoughts were critical. “Should schools be encouraging consumerism?” […]