A Place for Learning

Reflections on C.S. Lewis's piece titled "Priestesses in the Church?" with Insights from Tupac Shakur A Logical Argument for Gender Roles from a British Children's Author turned Christian Essayist and a Street Poet and Hip-Hop Artist. Recently, I've been reading many of C.S. Lewis's(the author of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) books on Christianity and morality.  A few weeks ago, I saved a shorter essay Lewis wrote, which I found on the Anglican church’s website.  The piece I stumbled upon is one of the only convincing Christian arguments I’ve come across on the case for gender roles. Lewis beautifully lays out both sexes' unique differences and importance and how their complementary duties are necessary for a flourishing society.  Well, reading and reflecting, I couldn't help but start to sing one of my favorite Tupac songs, "Keep Ya Head Up." I will get to that later.  Who knew Tupac and Lewis would have such similar insights? ...

 Mother Jones,  a Communist or a Patriot? Was the late founding mother of the modern workday and workers' rights a communist, or was she a lover of the Constitution and an American patriot?  I argue this powerful woman was both.  She had strong anti-capitalist sentiments and deep reverence for the Constitution and our national heroes.  She frequently cited the constitution's protection of individual rights when convincing judges, governors, and senators to release protesters from prison, protect children from cruel labor practices, and put an end to the murder and abuses from big industries.  In the end, she used all the resources she could to save the victims of industry warlords--who dehumanized their workers and behaved in ways only seen on plantations in the Deep South and in totalitarian regimes.  Historical Context Matters It made sense to defend her rants against capitalism, given her experience with "the system" at the time as it was....

Taylor’s “Race for Profit” is necessary if you want to understand the Black economic plight and the persistence of racial housing segregation in the United States.  She documents in great detail the many failures of HUD public-private housing programs of the 60s and 70s.  Taylor argues programs such as the low-income homeownership program were doomed from the start with the inclusion of the real estate industry, which steered the objectives from increased housing stability and homeownership among low-income Blacks towards providing a steady cash flow for real estate industry hustlers and corrupt bureaucrats. It was no surprise then programs failed as the schemes allowed widespread exploitation, bringing down those they were supposed to help. Instead of addressing the clear fraud, mismanagement, and neglect of HUD and its private partners, they found an easy scapegoat: Placing blame on the victim's character, the culture of poverty, and the insufficiency of government. Mea...

       My Interest In Nietzsche The psychology professor whose lectures on psychology and human behavior I enjoy listening to--,  Jordan Peterson describes the writer as a genius in describing the societal shifts of the late 18th century. He is also said to have- in ways- predicted the Holocaust, theorizing there would be a violent side-effect from the decline in religious ritual and practice, referred to as "the death of god."  I first became aware of Nietzsche when reading a biography on the late Jim Morrison, the volatile, rebellious rock legend who voraciously read the philosopher at a young age, which greatly influenced his poetry and later song lyrics for the Doors.  I also thought of Neitzche this past summer when hiking on the Neitzche trail to the little French town of Eze, where Neitzche spent time thinking and developing his theories that later turned into the infamous book  Thus Spake Zarathustra. A Birth of a Tragedy     So ...

  Drift and Mastery by Walter Lippman I picked up this book off my partner's shelf of old philosophy books on a night I couldn't sleep. I became entranced with the book and couldn't put it down for the next day.  The ideas and observations are timeless; even though this book was written in 1912( the year the Titanic sank), its wisdom rings true to this day, especially as we are going through a time where radical ideologies, corrupt institutions(specifically government and media), and people struggle with all that comes with the ever-expanding changes associated with "modernity."  At his time, this may have been the Model T, the radio, and women's rights. We still find a surprising number of similarities in the struggle to incorporate everyday innovations into our interaction with the world and how we imagine our future.  What should we hold on to from the past? How do we imagine a new and better future? How do we update our ways of thinking? Our institutions? ...