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Do Good Things Happen to Good People?
We're used to worrying about why bad things happen to good people. Dr. Stephen Post, director of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, has another take on the subject.
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Outward and Visible Signs
Only very superficial people, the author once thought, judged people by their appearance; for the majority of people to dress in a sloppy or careless fashion therefore represented an opportunity for people to make deeper estimates of each other's character, dependent not on the outer, but on the inner man.
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Virtually Virtuous
Are we more or less likely to lie to someone if we are communicating via email or text message than if we are speaking face-to-face? One researcher has found that using the computer can actually encourage people to lie.
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What Law & Order Taught Us
The magnificent warhorse of a series ended Monday night. Jonathan V. Last lists the lessons viewers can take away from one of TV's longest-running shows.
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Role Models vs. Heroes: Was Tiger Woods Ever Really Enough?
The term "role model" was coined in the first half of the twentieth century by the Columbia University sociologist Robert K. Merton, who also pioneered the techniques used in focus groups. "Hero," by contrast, is an ancient term of poetry and war.
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The Nashville Flood...Why Have We Paid So Little Attention to It?
Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No...you didn't. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No...we didn't loot.
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Silence, PLEASE
Is a taste for silence an aesthetic matter only? Does silence really have no moral qualities, no intellectual advantages, no significance for the deepening of character?
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The Death of Embarrassment
In our nonjudgmental, individualistic culture, we see public displays of just about everything. There are sound arguments for bringing back embarrassment.
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Virtue on the Hill: Are We Their Enablers?
Scandal stories about our leaders are embarrassing, but do they also make the voters (or to be blunt, you and me) complicit in the apparent collapse of political mores? And are our leaders in Congress today really as bad as critics claim?
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