It’s a running gag in America that holidays generate emotional conflicts like the Caribbean generates hurricanes. Red/blue political arguments, intoxicated relatives, old family wounds exposed, social obligations grudgingly met, and on and on.
Reducing Gun Violence: Part 1 [72]
What has worked in America to reduce gun violence? If we look beyond bombast–“Longer prison terms for gun violence! Bring back the death penalty!”–and self-righteous moralizing–“More bans on buying/using/carrying guns!”–we … Read More
Why "Therapist in the Wild"? [66]
You’ve probably seen one or two of the Therapist in the Wild episodes that my son Ethan and I are producing for our website. You might have asked yourself, “Why … Read More
The Dalai Lama and the suffering of change, conditioning, and suffering [65]
The Dalai Lama gave a lecture at UCSB in 2009, and it was quite the occasion. He had a cold, but talked joyfully in heavily accented English to 5,000 attentive … Read More
Approval and Disapproval Influence Us All the Time [64]
Whether we know it or not, our social existence is dominated by feeling accepted or unaccepted, OK with the world, or ashamed of some mistake, flaw, or failing. How we … Read More
Males Inherit More Intelligence from their Mothers [63]
A lot of fathers are going to hate this, but genetic research has found guys probably get a lot of their intelligence from their X gene, the feminine one. Of … Read More
Traditions guide and unite us: "You killed our iguana! You have to go catch us a new one!" [61]
Four to ten-year-old kids increasingly wake up to, “I’m part of a family, tribe, and nation that I care about.” Most children eventually feel morally bound to follow the rules … Read More
Do you want to go shooting? [60]
“Do you want to go shooting?” asked Ray many years ago, while he and Judy were over for dinner. “Sure,” I said, intrigued with the idea of firing a high … Read More
Designer babies: what's not to like? [57]
The Christian Science Monitor (6-25-12), in response to scientists for the first time mapping the DNA of a fetus, recently had a commentary questioning the ethics of “designer babies”–altering a … Read More
Lady Gaga and American Relationship Blind Spots [39]
People often say America is a celebrity culture, but this seems unfair to me. All cultures are celebrity cultures! Humans are fascinated with extraordinary people everywhere. In the U.S. we … Read More
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