The Pursuit of Happiness & Its Obstacles – Part 4
Signs of Failure Two phenomena of this 21st century American moment stand out as exemplary of what our valueless values have wrought. I consider them the natural effusion of materialistically centered culture aided by the expediency and opportunism that reside so...
The Pursuit of Happiness & Its Obstacles – Part 3
Happiness and Economism Let’s be more specific about the sources of our unhappiness. Since I identify the American economic obsession as the central (but not sole) factor leading to societal unhappiness and pathology, I begin with it. I will make it clear that I...
The Pursuit of Happiness & Its Obstacles – Part 2
Happiness & Plutocracy I used for dramatic example the modernized expression of terrorism, a method which itself is nothing new, because, despite being a relatively minor national security problem even when ugly and tragic, it preoccupies people and has been...
Another Extinction, Waiting to Happen: Civilization, Part 1
According to a 1998 “Physics Today” report, the “estimated costs of U.S. nuclear weapons arms race, 1940-1996” (in ’96 dollars) was $5.8 trillion. A year later, in a letter to the editor of the NY Times, Stephen Schwartz, Publisher of the Bulletin of Atomic...