Laurence Mesirow
I am a writer who has been concerned about the effects of modern technology on human living environments and human behavior for many years.
The Hurricane Of Modern Political Change
23The United States is having a very exciting presidential campaign season this year. From a field of over twenty candidates, a field of extremely diverse candidates who battled mightily in making their positions known...
Giving Up Free Will To A Charismatic Leader
One of the philosophical foundations of a democracy is the belief in free will. We are free to make choices that involve our moral values: our freedom in what we are going to say...
Will We Be Too Numb To Save Our Planet?
A problem which I have not really covered in this column, but which is sort of like the metaphorical elephant in the room of modern terrestrial society, is that of climate change. I must...
Magic That Is Close To The Skin
In most cultures, people have worn things around their neck to protect them from negative energies, from evil forces, and also to give them positive energies, constructive powers. It is a way of projecting...
When Life Becomes A Game
Apart from the purely recreational element, games serve another very important purpose both for human individuals as well as social groups. Through a game, a person is able to extract defined discrete principles in...
The Impossible Task Of Always Pinning Down What Is True
In today’s world, the main entity of knowledge by which people apprehend the world is a datum. Unless something lends itself to verification by the empirical evidence that a datum represents, it is not...
Living On A Psychological Treadmill
In today’s world, people increasingly define themselves and are defined by others with regard to what they do rather than who they are. The more that daily life becomes easier, becomes more frictionless, the...
Solving Meaningless Problems To Feel Alive
The human need to have some kind of control over his living environment has been fundamental to his survival. Control comes in many forms: superior knowledge, sharpened skills, good financial resources, powerful modern technology,...
Touch Has Become So Boring
Touching has become such a boring activity in modern technological society. In terms of the hard things that we have to deal with such as furniture, implements and devices, everything is either made of...
That Which Propels Our Lives Today
A young friend of mine in her twenties was recently discussing with me that if she decided to go to graduate school, she would like to do research into intrinsic motivators. Her desire triggered...