Having watched the burning of police cars, the smashing of store windows, and the police attempts at crowd control at the demonstrations surrounding the G20 summit in Toronto, I have to ask myself “What is the greatest threat to our liberties and freedom to come out of this protest?”
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Category: PoliticsC. John Sommerville, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Florida, has written an engaging book entitled Religious Ideas for Secular Universities. As he looked back on fifty years of university life as both a student and a professor, he wondered at how much the mission and role of the university had changed in that time period.
“I thought I was finally able to see our universities the way American society does, as a good way of preparing us for our jobs, but not where we look to answers for our important questions.” [Page 3]
Sommerville amplifies this view on page 7.
“It seems that some time in the 1980’s accountancy became the queen of sciences. Universities are about money in a whole new way. They are now measured in terms of money – the size of their endowments, how much they can charge for tuition, and the return on that investment in the starting salaries of new graduates.”
Sommerville’s views lead to three questions:
- Are universities becoming corporations?
- If they are, is this a good or a bad thing?
- If it is a bad thing, what can be done to reverse this trend? (continue reading…)
With the advent of the deep recession we have just experienced, there has been a resurgence of the theme that capitalism has failed and is dead or at least. The discussion around this topic has caused me to re-think Capitalism and in particular to wonder what makes Capitalism work.
One explanation both for the success of Capitalism and it’s failures is that Capitalism is founded on greed, the most predictable of human shortcomings. But is this really true? (continue reading…)
At the first lecture of Get Over Yourself by Bruxy Cavey an interesting book by J. M. Twenge and W. K. Campbell entitled The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in an Age of Entitlement was discussed.
In summary, Cavey, while he acknowledged there were people who had self-destructive perceptions of themselves, argued that “self-love” and “self-affirmation” have become a panacea of our generation for almost all psychological ailments. Instead promoting this, in his words we should:
“…renounce the pop-culture pursuit of self-love. Forget trying to love yourself more. In fact, most of us would benefit from thinking about ourselves less, period. Start focusing on the needs and desires of others, especially those people who are on the margins of social circles.”
In response to this, I would ask:
- Is it true that our generation is overly focused on ourselves?
- If we are, is it a bad thing?
Disclaimer: This review contains content and plot information so if you plan on seeing this movie, you may wish to defer reading this review.
The Valley of Elah is a dark, troubling movie. Although I hesitate recommending it to others, I found it to be thought provoking.
So what was the movie about? (continue reading…)
When I was an undergraduate, I was told by a fellow student who knew that I was a Christian that a Professor of mine had said to this student that he (the Professor) did not really believe one could be a researcher in science and a Christian. Now do not misunderstand me. I am not writing to show another example of “anti-Christian bias,” but rather the contrary. I believe the Professor in question, if this hearsay is accurate, was expressing a personal conviction. (continue reading…)
“Kennedy : I feel I’m really sticking my neck out, though, debating with a professional theologian.
Lewis : I’m not a professional theologian. But real debate, debate to unearth the truth, not to beat your opponent, seems to be the right thing to do here-as if we were brought here for that purpose. Do you have that feeling too?”
Peter Kreeft Between Heaven and Hell , p24, InterVarsity Press (1964)
When I look on my own schooling on debating, I believe the focus was wrong. First we often began with a nonsensical proposition (for example “black is black enough”) and then we were placed on the Affirmative and Negative sides by fiat. Finally, (and in my view most disastrously) our objective was to win the debate. Who won was usually determined by a show of hands by the audience or by a ruling of a panel of judges.
So what’s wrong with this? (continue reading…)
The National Post published an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted on December 2-3, 2008 asking whether political parties should receive public funding. They found that 61% of those polled opposed public funding, 36% supported public funding and 3% didn’t know or refused to answer the question. So was the move to cut public funding a political move by the Conservatives motivated by a desire to financially cripple their political opponents? (continue reading…)
In the United States, separate votes are held for the Senate, the House of Representatives and for the Presidency and so citizens may choose to vote for a candidate of one political stripe for president and choose a representative of another party to represent them in Congress. In Canada under our parliamentary system, when a citizen votes in a federal election, that vote may express three different wishes. Some citizens vote primarily for their local candidate much as our neighbors tot he south choose their congressional delegates. On the other hand, a citizen may vote out of allegiance to a party. Finally a citizen may simply weigh the qualifications of the leaders of the parties and vote for that person they believe best able to lead the country. So what has this to do with our current Canadian Coalition Crisis? (continue reading…)
We are facing a very tumultuous time in Canadian Democracy. We have only just finished an election a few weeks ago that saw the Conservative Party extend their lead in the number of seats but still fall well short of a majority. Now the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), and the separatist Bloc Quebecois have struck a deal to put together a coalition government that would relegate the Conservatives to opposition stutus without an election. What has all of this to do with Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers ? (continue reading…)