The Natural Linguist

 At the time of this writing, it is shortly after the conclusion of the 2020 Presidential election in the US, and the inauguration of a new president. This has been a turbulent time in the history of our nation, but instructive nevertheless. If you were tuned into the events of the world in 2009 and 2010, possibly you recall Harold Camping, a radio personality and Christian evangelist best known for predicting the End of the World on May 21, 2011, 6:00 PM. When the day and time arrived for that great event, his devoted followers were prepared for what they called "the Rapture".  Many had sold all their belongings and said goodbye to friends and loved ones. At 5:58, they breathlessly anticipated the long-awaited fulfillment of the promise that they would be snatched up to Heaven before God laid waste to the world for its wickedness. 5:59 arrived. Then finally the clock ticked off the seconds until 6:00, then 6:05, 6:10, 7:00, 8:00, and so on. Nothing happened. The world rolled...

The word ‘values’ has taken on some unfortunate baggage. That happens to a lot of words. They go in and out of fashion. They become associated with Us or Them. They go from praiseworthy to pejorative and  back again.  It’s a pity about values , though. I just rewatched a movie, Pleasantville , that I hadn’t seen for quite a few years. It’s a charming and moving fable about a town trying to grapple with change. The protagonists in the movie are the people who felt hemmed in or smothered by the old ways and embraced the new. The antagonists were those who liked the old ways,  for whom the change was scary, and who clung doggedly to the old ways. The word Values was dragged out to the town square and tarred and feathered, metaphorically, by virtue of being uttered by the chief antagonist, and by being the thing that stood in opposition to the change at the heart of the movie. The reason it’s a pity is that we do ourselves a disservice in a couple of different ways. Fir...

In his book, The Diamond Age, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer , author Neal Stephenson presents a gripping and epic story full of nanotechnological marvels. It's one of my favorite books, an old friend now that I've read multiple times. Like all fine literature, it grows with you. At one time of life you read it and it conveys a message that you're primed to absorb at that time. At a different time of life, you read it and it might as well be a different book. I recently finished reading The Diamond Age , yet again, and its pertinence to the current state of our nation is very striking to me in a way that it has never been before. I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about the terrible political division that sometimes seems like it is tearing the country in half. Our two political parties' differences have become so irreconcilable that nothing constructive can ever be done. And if perchance anything ever happens to benefit one party, the other party immedia...

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 ...