The Natural Linguist

I would like to weigh in on the current political trend of states banning abortion. Alabama started the trend, and we haven't seen the last of it. I've always maintained that if we want to understand a problem, we need to look at it like we would a sculpture, that is, something with three-dimensions that we have to view from many different angles to fully understand. Complex problems must be understood from several different perspectives if we ever hope to address them wisely and well. Our current tendency in the US is to view certain hot-button topics from the political, left-right perspective. There is possibly some value to this, but it is very limiting to ONLY see problems through this lens as we often tend to do. And the political point of view is perhaps the least useful of any perspective when confronting a difficult and contentious issue such as abortion because the parties involved have no interest in reaching a common ground. And so they just end up talking past ea...

What is a life well lived?  Are there Principles that exist outside space and time, eternal Principles of infinite worth, immovable bedrock Principles that can never be disrupted or unseated though the universe itself should cease to exist? If so, then I want to construct my life on those Principles. Is there Truth -- statements that hold true in every corner of the cosmos, for every particle of matter, for every being on the spectrum of life and sentience, and for all time? If so, then that Truth is what I want to light my path. What does it mean for this to be 'better' than that ? Is there some unfailing Yardstick that can always tell me what is the better of two things, two choices, two paths? If so, then I want that Yardstick always by my side. But how do I know? Ancient wisdom, modern learning, religions with their doctrines and deities, philosophies with their axioms and postulates, all make claims about what is the Best Way, what are the most enduring Truths and the mos...

With the latest installment of "Culture Wars: Restroom Mania", I've been thinking a lot about gender lately. I am interested in and a bit apprehensive about the societal and cultural impact of loosening the hitherto tight coupling between gender and the phenotypic expression of sex. How much of our success in achieving a measure of civilization, for example, can be attributed to our traditionally strong commitment to a strictly binary interpretation of gender that is largely determined by the visible sex organs? Today, when a baby is born, practically the first thing we do is to observe what is present between the child's legs. This mere observation sets in motion an immense and immensely complicated train of events and expectations that will affect the child profoundly in pretty much every aspect of life. I'm explicitly avoiding value judgements about this train of events and how it pertains to an individual. Rather, what I am trying to come to grips with is the ...

I think this binary view that a government is either socialist or capitalist is unhelpful. Because those two words are just labels that mean different things to different people, they tend to obscure rather than clarify. They have become nothing more to most people than an ideological rallying cry used cynically by politicians and blindly by partisans. But the worst thing is that they form a barrier to rational discourse by turning what should be an informed debate about the costs and benefits of specific policy proposals into a holy war of good vs. evil fueled by ignorance and invective. We all are the beneficiaries of both "capitalism" and "socialism". We all enjoy the products of others' ingenuity and invention that improve and enrich our lives. But consider the fact that all of that is possible only because our businesses are built upon a vast infrastructure that we have established with great effort and maintain at great cost. Public schools, libraries and ...

The phrase "you are what you eat" has never been more true. Our consumption of information junk food is at an all-time high and many are suffering simultaneously from information obesity and knowledge malnutrition. It is ironic that we live in an age when the knowledge and wisdom of the ages is freely available, spread out before us in a rich profusion that was unimaginable even a few decades ago. And yet so many people are literally starving their minds and wasting their lives by consuming a steady diet of vapid entertainments and one-sided news that is nothing more than bombastic hot air. So why, in the midst of riches, do so many choose the lesser part? What has become of our character? How is it possible that we have the GPS, but are still lost? Many good people I know talk of the need to return to Christian values. But what does that mean? The phrase "Christian values" means different things to different people. Those who are attracted to their own gender can a...

Every week or two, it seems we have a mass shooting of some sort. After each one of these incidents, there is a brief but intense salvo of opinions flying around -- the pro-guns vs. the anti-guns. Both sides have favorite talking points that the other side finds ridiculous. The problem is that nothing productive ever emerges from this seemingly endless and pointless tug of war. After each round of bloviating bombast, most people turn back to their everyday concerns and we leave the families of the dead to nurse the wounds of their loss. According to the Internet, Albert Einstein once said something like this: "We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." I just read about an idea that lies outside the feckless back and forth rut we've gotten ourselves into. It represents a different level of thinking. I'd like to know what you all think. In this country, we love our guns. Some people think they're necessary to maintain our free...

Abortion is not a pretty thing no matter how you look at it. Some people call it a tragedy, and it is. But in my view, it is also the symptom of a larger tragedy, a last resort that we would rather never come to, the unfortunate conclusion of a highly preventable train of events. In a video I saw, a pastor was desperately trying to appeal to the emotions, to inspire a horror of abortion. And certainly there is much to dislike about it. But if we're really serious about about this issue, the conversation needs to change drastically. Right now it is just a big tug of war that will never go anywhere. A woman's right to have an abortion is the law of the land. That right is the result of a hard-fought war and it is absolutely necessary for it to remain legal always because the alternative is far, far worse for individuals as well as society. When it comes right down to it, human suffering and well-being are the ultimate arbiters of good and evil. This has always been the case and ...