Blog Archives
The Mindset List of America’s Greece and Rome Recently the Mindset List presented its list of “American Biblical Illiteracy.” But the Bible isn’t the only great American frame of reference: language we still use but origins we’ve forgotten. The other great pervasive influence—on our vocabulary, our phrases, our buildings, and our customs—is the ancient world of Greek and Rome. This is the realm of Socrates and Julius Caesar, of Plato and Nero and multiple others. It’s myth and history and architecture and literature. Without the background of classical Greek and Rome, America as it is now would never have existed, Our Founding Fathers knew the classics very well, and we ordinary Americans know a lot more about ancientGreece and Rome Read on »
The Mindset List of Naked America 2.0 In 1964 Vance Packard wrote a book about the loss of American privacy—which he called THE NAKED SOCIETY. He was worried about Americans’ vanishing right to be let alone in the face of photography and newspaper stories. Sixty years later few things are more important than the issue of privacy. Is Facebook a social media company or a surveillance company that sells our personal data to the highest bidder? How pervasive is government snooping on its own citizens? Is privacy a Constitutional right guaranteeing the choice to get an abortion, or is it something dreamed up by hippie liberal judges? What are we to make of a society where you can get as Read on »
THE MINDSET LIST OF SEXUAL REVOLUTION 2.0 In retrospect Sexual Revolution 1.0 seems to have been a pretty simple affair. A revolt against Victorian standards, in alliance with the birth control pill, made increased sex, in or out of wedlock, more and more acceptable and less and less risky. People, especially he young, took their clothes off, and pretty soon “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll” were the reigning triad in Europe and North America. In time, however, the bill came due. Sexually transmitted diseases weren’t all curable by any means, and sexual aggression was out of sync with gender equality. Thus, SR 1.0 came to a somewhat whimpering end. Now we are in SR 2.0 but unlike SR 1.0 Read on »
The Mindset List of Queen Elizabeth Monroe: Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend They’ve never been together before—until now. They are arguably the two most iconic women on the planet after World War II. Nearly eighty years on, few on the globe would not recognize their images. They are both royals, albeit in different modes. They both proved, and continue to prove, the enduring truth that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, whether on the head or around the neck. 1 Both were born 40 days apart in 1926, the future British queen as Elizabeth Windsor and the future Hollywood queen as Norma Jean Mortenson. 2 Marilyn took as her surname the American president who declared an American empire in Read on »
the Biblical The Biblical In-QUIZ-ition: A Scriptural Ultra Sound Just for YOU! By Ron Nief with Tom McBride Nowhere in the Bible does it say you must KNOW the Bible in order to go to Heaven. But once upon a time in America people not only kept the Family Bible in a pride-of-household place. They read it daily. Above all, it was the linguistic sea they swam in. Hundreds 0f familiar phrases emerged from its tissue-thin pages. The Bible was a linguistic way of life. That was a while ago. How familiar are you with those days of yore? This little quiz—our own version of the old “inquisition” of the Late Middle Ages—is a quick and dirty way to find Read on »
The Mindset List of Anxious Adolescence: A Teen’s Brain on Social Media The great social media platforms permit teens, and the rest of us, to network, find interesting acquaintances, and share inspiring moments. Social psychologists and parents say that social media also makes teens anxious. Adolescence is a tough time anyhow—all those self-esteem and developmental issues—but social media platforms, combined with recession, pandemics, and political bitterness, make things even worse. Lots of kids do fine with Facebook and Instagram and all the others, but many will struggle and find social media a paradoxically addictive burden. Here’s the pubescent mindset of an incessant process that some experts think is becoming a national problem. 1. Our social sciences teacher said people our Read on »
THE MINDSET LIST OF HAVANA SYNDROME Other than UFO sightings, few unexplained events have gotten as much attention as has the so-called HAVANA SYNDROME, a series of incidents reported especially by American (and some Canadian) diplomats all over the world. These personnel and their families say that they have experienced a wide array of symptoms, including disorientation, imbalance, nausea, confusion, concussion, deafness, and fatigue. A few of them have been unable to return to work, and a Congressional bill, bi-partisan, and signed by the president, has supplied benefits for American government employees who experience brain and heart injuries, Havana Syndrome is a cause for alarm and mystery. But it has not happened in a vacuum but in a mindset. It maps onto Read on »
THE MINDSET LIST OF MICROMANAGING PARENTS There’s nothing quite like starting a 40year trend. And, even better, doing it quickly. By the end of Regan’s first term Stranger Danger, Play Dates, Bike Helmets, and Satanic Panic were all big cultural trends, and they have yet to exhaust themselves. By the 90s “Velcro Parents” and “Helicopter Parents” had entered the lexicon. They’re still growing strong, with children’s self-esteem and safety on the line, and a growing trend towards consumerism in daycare, summer camp, grammar and elementary schools, and even colleges and universities. So far, it seems, graduate and professional schools have escaped. Such parents and guardians have mindsets. Read on. 1 Stranger Danger has always been a thing. 2 A Play Date is rarely a bad idea. Read on »