tag > Culture
-
Rituals create community by translating our love into action - Article on Xunzi by Curie Virág
For Xunzi, the Chinese Confucian philosopher of the third century BCE, emotions such as love and gratitude are not just feelings in response to events – things that happen to us – but possibilities for action. Through ritual, he declares, we ‘give a shape to that which is without physical substance and magnificently accomplish proper form’.
-
Think of the current time as the world’s largest ever human IQ test..
"If you have to be persuaded, reminded, pressured, lied to, incentivized, coerced, bullied, socially shamed, guilt-tripped, threatened, punished and criminalized... If all of this is considered necessary to gain your compliance - you can be absolutely certain that what is being promoted is not in your best interest." - Ian Watson
-
The Chinese ‘lying flat’ movement (tangping, 躺平)
An illustration making the rounds on China’s internet in May 2021 shows a man “lying flat.” “You want me to get up?” he asks. “That’s not possible in this lifetime.” The drive toward self-reliance has encountered an unlikely form of resistance in a generation of young Chinese who balk at the Party’s high-minded calls for “continued struggle” alongside an deeply engrained culture of overwork without the promise of real advancement. They opt instead for “lying flat,” or tangping (躺平). The “lying flat” movement calls on young workers and professionals, including the middle-class Chinese who are to be the engine of Xi Jinping’s domestic boom, to opt out of the struggle for workplace success, and to reject the promise of consumer fulfilment.
-
England’s Upper Classes - A Dangerous Cult
For centuries, these ‘elite’ families have been as effective at spinning their own inimitability even as they have been at clinging onto their money, power and influence. The origins of that wealth are usually kept deliberately opaque and with good reason: nobody ever got fabulously wealthy on altruism. Many of Britain’s poshest families built their fortunes on the suffering of others.
-
"A lie is like a snowball: the longer you roll it, the bigger it gets." - Martin Luther (1483-1546), German theologian and reformer.
-
"Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation" - Celine's Laws
