Essays Social

Public school is a daunting, tedious, occasionally bloody experience shared by millions of students, current and former. Classroom fights, incompetent teachers, sex in bathrooms, rigid social castes - it's shocking most of us graduated able to read. Take Out Your Earrings Before You Fight takes a dry, witty look at all the things you learn - and everything you don't - while slogging through the K-12 system.

Zwei Essays und eine Glosse des geistreichen preußischen Schriftstellers Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811): "Über das Marionettentheater...

The Roots of Violence: Why Humans Are Not by Nature Violent (Essays on Law, Policy and Psychiatry, Vol. 10, 2018) is an analytical and policy study that presents abundant evidence that human beings are not by nature violent and that violence therefore is a conditioned response. The scientific disciplines examined are anthropology, biology, neurology, pedagogy, psychoanalysis, and sociology.

More than 16 million people had posted their #MeToo story and support against sexual harassment by mid-October as a reaction to Rose McGowan’s brave admission that she had allegedly been raped by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. A groundswell of reaction to and exposure of this sexual predation was unleashed that has spread throughout Europe and beyond. This is a historic moment and it needs to be memorialized. Listen to this collection of 26 essays from people who understand want to make this change, and we, as a society, have got to figure out a way to drive that change forward.

Jesus an anarchist? That doesn't sound like the Jesus preached by the political establishment, mega church pastors, or even most small town ministers. Nevertheless, Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God that makes all other political loyalties inconsequential.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

This audiobook contains distinct essays on Darwinian epistemology, the future of shabd yoga, Ken Wilber's Atman Project, Clarence Darrow's agnostic philosophy, and the debate between Richard Feynman and John Lilly over the reality/non-reality of out-of-body experiences. Excerpt from one of the chapters: I think it is important to distinguish methodological naturalism from a philosophically absolutist position, since trying to ground all things down to the empirical realm and testable realm is a practical process and doesn't necessarily mean that nothing else exists beyond what we can scientifically discern.

"Der Mann, der in Reichtum stirbt, stirbt in Schande!" In der Tat, das sagte Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919), seinerzeit drittreichster Amerikaner nach John D. Rockefeller und Cornelius Vanderbilt. Gemessen an der Kaufkraft von 2014, besaß er ein Vermögen von über 300 Milliarden Dollar – und gab doch das meiste davon für wohltätige Zwecke wieder her. Er ließ zahlreiche Bibliotheken bauen, gründete eine Hochschule und förderte den Bau des Internationalen Gerichtshofs in Den Haag.

Right in the World is a collection of essays on hot topics of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. In this book, Gayle Trotter exposes liberal corruption, takes on gun-grabbers, Benghazi, the fake Russian dossier, Obamacare, and more.

In the third Quarterly Essay of 2001, Guy Rundle comes to grips with John Howard, the prime minister who, on the eve of an election, seems to have turned round his political fortunes by spurning refugees and writing blank cheques for America's War on Terror. This is a brilliant account of John Howard's dominant ideas, his concerted "dreaming" with its emphasis on unity and national identity that reveals him to be the most reactionary PM we have ever had.

In Quarterly Essay 49, Latham argues that the time has come to go beyond criticism to solutions. In that spirit, he offers a timely assessment of the future for Labor. He examines the key challenges: the union nexus, the Keating settlement, a real education revolution, a new war on poverty, climate change, and handling the Greens. With wit and insight, he suggests that Labor's biggest problem is the steady erosion of its traditional working-class base.

What cultural messages do they receive about work and home, about sex and their bodies? Why do so many reject the feminist label? This is an original, often hilarious look at role models and available options in the age of social media and sexual frankness. With piercing insight, Goldsworthy lays bare the dilemmas of being a woman today and asks how women can truly become free agents.

Where did the Right go wrong? With the departure of George W. Bush and John Howard, conservative parties in the US and Australia entered a period of turmoil. Foreign affairs, economics, the environment - all were issues to be avoided. Most profoundly, conservatives no longer seemed to have a compelling vision of the future - and arguably still don't. How did the Right end up in this state? How might conservatism renew itself?

Mungo MacCallum investigates political leadership in Australia, past and present. This is a characteristically barbed and perceptive look at the challenges facing the Rudd government and Australia. MacCallum argues that the things we used to rely on are not there anymore. On the Right, the blind faith in markets has recently collapsed. The Left lost its guiding light with the demise of the socialist dream.

In the aftermath of the 2010 election, George Megalogenis considers what has happened to politics in Australia. Have we entered a new phase with minority government and the rise of the Greens and independents? Hawke, Keating and Howard years were ones of bold reform; recently we have seen an era of power without purpose. But why? Is it down to powerful lobbies, or the media, or a failure of leadership, or all of the above?

From the Hillsong Church to the Family First Party, Australia appears to be experiencing an evangelical revival. In the second Quarterly Essay for 2006, Amanda Lohrey investigates that revival - its shape and scope, and what it means for the mainstream churches and the nation's politics. She talks to young believers and analyses the machinations of the Christian Right. She discusses, with humour and insight, the appeal of the megachurch, the changing image of Jesus and the political theories of George Pell and Peter Jensen.

The Commercial Exploitation of Abuse is an essay about the "abuse-centered culture"... It borders mental derangement to build a whole society around the paranoid focus on abuse instead of defining what love is in the first place. As more and more countries adopt Draconian laws and law enforcement policies, following the USA example, it is important to offer solutions alternative to jailing people for years, if not decades, thus depriving them of freedom, substantial opportunities for personal evolution, sensual pleasures and intelligent social life.

Do you feel like you live life looking in from the outside? From the way you speak, to the color of your skin, to the way you vote, or the way you pray, you don't fit the mold. And yet you find yourself still trying to prove yourself to others. In Set Me Free, New York Times bestselling author Lecrae invites you on a poetic and artistic exploration of how you can persevere against the lies of unworthiness to experience the freedom given to you in Jesus.

Of Leisure only survives in a fragmentary state. The work concerns the rational use of spare time, whereby one can still actively aid humankind by engaging in wider questions about nature and the universe. The text begins mid-sentence, and ends rather abruptly. In the Codex Ambrosianus (the main source for Seneca's essays) it is simply tacked onto the end of De Vita Beata suggesting a scribe missed a page or two.

A summary of the world's best-selling Bhagavad-gita. There have been literally hundreds of translations of the Bhagavad-gita published in English alone, which is evidence that the voices from ancient India still speak to us in modern times. Bhagavad-gita: A Photographic Essay is an artistic presentation of the key philosophical ideas of the Bhagavad-gita's 18 chapters. The author eloquently presents the Gita's transcendent vision.