Humanities

Grandparent Alienation: A Loss Unlike Any Other

Grandparent alienation is a growing problem, but often has its roots in the parent’s need to differentiate themselves from their own parents. This can lead to an emotional cut-off, thus denying grandparents the opportunity to get to know their grandchild. To address this issue, grandparents should reach out for support, such as joining a support group, and negotiate for phone calls or video calls with their grandchild. If the alienation is due to emotional fusion, the grandparent should recognize that the solution is not more of the same behavior that created the problem. Read full article here

COP15: Leaders across all sectors must deliver for nature and for people

Africa is at the forefront of the battle against climate change and biodiversity loss. With a quarter of the world’s biodiversity, the continent is facing both drought and flooding in many regions, putting immense pressure on its natural ecosystems. In order to protect the well-being of the human species, African leaders are coming together to form the A Pan African Conservation Trust Fund (A-PACT), which aims to pool resources and expand coverage of 8,600 protected and conserved areas across the continent. Africa is showing its leadership in this space and is now preparing for the 15th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15). Read full article here

The psychology of grief: Why losing a pet dog or cat is like losing a family member

Losing a pet can be just as emotionally devastating as losing a loved one, and should be treated as such. Our brains are capable of forming strong emotional connections with non-human creatures, and the limited cognitive abilities and interactions of a pet can actually make those bonds stronger. Comforting contact is a priority when forming interpersonal bonds, and many pets such as cats and dogs can offer this. So, next time you encounter someone upset over the loss of a pet, resist the urge to say “just get a new one”, and understand that pets are not just property, but an emotionally meaningful part of someone’s life. Read full article here

Research Reveals the Most Common Reasons People Lie

It is not always the case that lying and deception are malicious, immoral or unethical; in fact, often people lie for altruistic reasons. A recent study conducted by McArthur et al. has identified the most common motivations for lying, which are altruistic purposes, keeping personal information secret, and avoiding being judged. Furthermore, the research found that our personality traits can be used to predict lying and deceptive behaviour, with those low on conscientiousness and high on impulsiveness being more prone to lying. Read full article here

Journalists want to re-create Twitter on Mastodon. Mastodon is not into it.

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been quite divisive, and it’s sent many journalists fleeing to the hills. More than 1,300 journalists have set up a server on Mastodon, but dozens of servers have already blocked them. While the journalists want to reinvent what they had on Twitter, many existing Mastodon users consider their way of doing things to be toxic and an unwanted change to the server ecosystem. Read full article here

From “Mammoth” to “Refrigerator”: A Look at Indigenous Vocabulary Lists`

A word list of indigenous languages in the archives of American Philosophical Society (APS) reveals the intentions of the personalities who compiled it. Thomas Jefferson recorded a broadside of words in Unquachog, a Native American language, from three unnamed individuals. To determine if the record had equivalent terms with other indigenous languages, Jefferson sent the list to those he thought would be in contact with native people, like military officials. The collected data allowed him to examine which tribes might potentially resist the U.S. expansionist policy during that time. Read full article here

How Many Errorrs Are in This Essay?

The Wicked Bible is one of the most infamous printing errors in history. Printed in 1631, this edition of the King James Version of the Bible is missing one of the 783,137 words contained within. The mistake was quite profound. In Exodus 20:14, the word “not” was omitted by accident; the seventh commandment given to Moses was changed to “Thou shalt commit adultery”. Another mistake transformed the Lord’s “greatness” into His “great-asse”. Few copies of the Wicked Bible remain; the rest were destroyed. Read full article here

The First Authoritarian

Is Plato authoritarian? Karl Popper thinks so, calling him the first influential authoritarian thinker. In his book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, he dissected Plato’s blueprint of an ideal city, calling out how many of its elements reeked of a “dictatorship of philosopher-kings” that suppressed free thinking and imposed a rigid caste system. Plato’s ideal city was heavily socially stratified with a strict division of labour and state censorship. Popper pins Plato as antidemocratic, opposed to the democracy that Athens was embracing in his time. Read full article here

Shakespeare’s Latin and Greek

There are few facts about Shakespeare that are universally agreed upon as true, but one of these is that he didn’t know Latin or Greek. And now this is up for debate. Ben Jonson famously wrote, “And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek” in reference to Shakespeare, using “though” to mean “if”—an obsolete use of the word. This suggests that he was actually praising Shakespeare; Jonson was saying Shakespeare would have been better than the classical playwrights even if he hadn’t known Latin or Greek (which he did). Read full article here

On War And Literature

“All honest war literature is fundamentally anti-war.” Honest war literature paints a true picture of war—all the sorrow, destruction, and senselessness involved. While many pieces of war literature don’t portray the barbarity of war, great war literature doesn’t necessarily shy away from it. John Horne Burns’s The Gallery is an example that shows this gruesome reality. It details the American occupation of Naples during World War 2 and the atrocities committed against “enemy” civilians. There are no innocent fighters in war; the “good guys” raped, murdered, and extorted Neapolitan non-combatants. Read full article here

FASCINATING READS, SUMMARISED

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