Category Archives: Social Progress

Link and Comments: Challenge to Conventional Wisdom: About the Nuclear Family

Posted on Monday 10 August 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

That long NYT news story about the religious heartland that I posted a couple days ago included this quote from a Mr. Driesen, a utility company worker: “Unfortunately, there’s just more divorce than there used to be,” he said. “There’s … Continue reading →

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Link and Comments: Personal Liberty and Seat Belts

Posted on Saturday 25 July 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

As I was saying: Washington Post: How mask fights echo seat belt fights: ‘The right to be splattered all over their windshields’ As transportation secretary in the Reagan administration, Elizabeth Dole pushed for mandatory seat belt laws. The idea created … Continue reading →

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Notes for the Book: Hierarchy of Morality

Posted on Friday 26 June 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

This one isn’t mine; this is Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, which I first became aware of in Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011), page 624, and later recalled when I reread E.O. Wilson’s foundational On … Continue reading →

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Hans Rosling: FACTFULNESS (2018)

Posted on Wednesday 11 March 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a book that explores why most people are wrong on key facts about the world, thinking it worse than it is, e.g. concerning poverty, life expectancy, etc. In a sense it’s a modern-day counterpart to Steven Pinker’s THE … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Sustainability and Rural Living

Posted on Friday 15 November 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Problem? Or solution? Sarah Smarsh: Something Special Is Happening in Rural America. Subtitle: There is a “brain gain” afoot that suggests a national homecoming to less bustling spaces. Writing from Wichita The nation’s most populous cities, the bicoastal pillars of … Continue reading →

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Junger: TRIBE

Posted on Saturday 23 March 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Sebastian Junger’s TRIBE: On Homecoming and Belonging (Grand Central/Twelve 2016) is one of several short, relatively ‘incidental’, books I’ve read in the past month — ‘incidental’ in that they’re mostly off-topic to my more serious themes of science, philosophy, and … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Trump and His Supporters; Versions of Leviticus; Ancient Aliens, Skepticism, and What Science Fiction Is Not

Posted on Friday 3 August 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve been preoccupied with other matters in recent months, and need to resume regular posting of Links and Comments from things I see in the papers and magazines that I think are pertinent, in one way or another. If I … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Social Progress | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Trump and His Supporters; Versions of Leviticus; Ancient Aliens, Skepticism, and What Science Fiction Is Not

David Brooks on Myths vs. Parables

Posted on Tuesday 17 July 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

New York Times columnist David Brooks runs hot and cold with me; ostensibly a conservative, he’s too inclined to dismiss new ideas in favor of sanctified values, for my taste, yet he does read widely and responds to many new … Continue reading →

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Link and Comments: Hollywood and Liberals

Posted on Saturday 3 February 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

NYT: Neil Gross, Why Is Hollywood So Liberal? Best guess: There is, however, a third explanation worth pondering: that the emotional requirements of acting are conducive to progressive politics. “The overwhelmingly liberal orientation of actors,” Professor Ross has written, “can … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Sports and Trump; Pinker and Gates; Tribal Allegiance and Actual Progress

Posted on Saturday 3 February 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

NYT, 3Feb18: Trump’s Blood Sport Politics. The writer recalls “”The Sporting Spirit,” an essay written by George Orwell in 1945 that sought to reckon with the rise of our modern athletic-industrial complex.” For Orwell, the rise of sports was bound … Continue reading →

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