Like spokes on a wheel, these wide boulevards typify the landscape of Paris. Beautiful components of the city, tourists have come to associate these streets with “La Ville Lumiere”. But this architecture has a more sinister origin: it developed out of a desire to stop protesters.The second image shows a now-demolished street called rue du […]
La Ville Lumiere and the Desire to Stop Protests Read More »
In Frank Herbert’s sci-fi _Dune_ series, the Bene Gesserit are amazing space-witches who have developed such mental control over their unconscious physiology that their powers seem superhuman. But Herbert’s ideas weren’t merely fiction: the person you see here is not a space witch, but she did figure out a technique of controlling elements of human
Patricia Cowings and the Autogenic-Feedback Training Exercise Read More »
Here is one of the most famous job advertisements in the history of psychology. In 1971, Professor Philip Zimbardo enlisted a number of highly educated men to participate in an experiment about prison life. Those who enrolled in the project knew more about what they were getting into than most participants of psychological tests, and
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And here we see Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. He embodied the Existentialist movement, which argued that there is no authority or meaning in existence outside of what we make of it. Whether we accept or reject this idea, or find it hopeful or depressing, Sartre’s philosophy admirably
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This 17th-century design would make a perfect tattoo, except the meaning would say something pitiable about the wearer. It is a rose with the Latin word “CAUTE” beneath. The rose meant secrecy, and _caute_ means “cautiously.” The person who used this sign, Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677), did so because he had to constantly keep his
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If you haven’t read about the Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31/June 1, 1921, I recommend learning about it. One of the worst race-based killings in American history, it illustrates how simmering bigotry, fear, and mob violence can erupt quickly and cause lasting harm. It also showcases the critical role that historical memory plays in
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This is Lucy Wills, a woman lucky enough to possess the resources to do as she pleased. She travelled throughout her life, never married and maintained many long-lasting friendships, and kept up a lifetime of rigorous scientific study — she utilized all these characteristics to develop research that led to the saving of many people’s
Lucy Wills and Marmite Read More »
Today’s social-media aficionados take a lot of personality tests that we know are pure rot, like “what your birth crystal says about the way you treat your pets” or “what your quarantine eating habits reveal about your financial investment patterns.” The bust pictured here reflects similarly outlandish claims from a century and a half ago,
The Racial Undertones of Phrenology Read More »
This piece of furniture has an epic name: the Great Bed of Ware. Carved around 1600 in Elizabethan England, the exquisitely crafted masterpiece became famous almost immediately – Shakespeare even had one of his characters in _Twelfth Night_ (1601) claim that a piece of paper was so large that it was “big enough for the
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The Ancient Roman military brought the Empire into being, and its soldiers had far-reaching reputations for their discipline and skill. A look at the severity of punishments for wayward enlisted men goes a long way to explain this — the Roman officers could be as brutal to their own men as they were to their
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Reading about the way the cigarette industry insidiously and effectively played the American public is like watching a horror movie. By now we all (I hope) know how major tobacco companies secretly designed strategies to hide information about the links between smoking and cancer, but reviewing the advertisements and internal corporate documents is like looking
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The headline here says the world will end in 1843 — that’s Jesus you see up at the top of the page, literally returning to earth on some clouds to clean the world from sin.Of course, it didn’t happen. This was the belief of the American Baptist preacher William Miller, whose evangelical movement convinced as
American Baptist William Miller and the “Great Disappointment” Read More »
Ah, this guy.Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BCE- 43 BCE) — the most famous speech-maker in the history of Ancient Rome — could be whiny, self-important, and blind to the way the powerful families of Rome enchanted him. But he is also truly sympathetic in the way he strived to uphold the political structure of the
Marcus Tullius Cicero and His Thoughts on Death Read More »
Zhuangzi (4th-c BCE) is one of the most famous philopsophers in Chinese history. In that oh-so-paradoxical-sounding way that Daoists often express themselves, Zhuangzi has a lighthearted and quippy way to think about death.The story he gives in the eponymously named _Zhuangzi_ tells of the sage’s response to his wife’s demise. After she passed away, a
Chinese Philosopher Zhuangzi and His Theories of Death Read More »
This Japanese sliding-door panel from about 1606 shows the allegedly immortal Liezi riding the winds. Although based on mythological stories, the flying figure also evokes a state of dreaming, since humans have recorded flying dreams across many civilizations. The Daoist text named after Liezi gives insight to a particular type of dream interpretation. In this
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Dust bunnies on the ceiling out of control? No, this is an illustration of a Medieval dream, and it’s giving this character from a poem by Chaucer some anxiety. The interpretation of dreams could indeed be a cause for worry in these centuries.The Christian monks and bishops who wrote about dreams during the Middle Ages
Meet Aspasia of Miletus (d. about 400 BCE), a philosopher whose life illustrates that no matter how important and interesting a person’s ideas are, if no one records them, their impact fades. Certainly the most important female philosopher from the Ancient Greek past, Aspasia’s actual intellectual contributions are unknown to us. What we know is
Ancient Romans Aspasia of Miletus Read More »
Ever hear of the philosophical puzzle called “the trolley problem”? It’s a famous way to make you realize that your instincts might not match up with your ideas about morality. Namely, most people would elect to throw a trolley switch that would take it off its course if it would kill only one person instead
Philippa Foot and “The Trolley Problem” Read More »
Let’s embrace our 14-year-old selves and discuss the funniest toilet humor in Ancient history. Appropriately, it’s found in a bar — in a tavern room from the late first/mid-second century Roman port city called Ostia Antica. The entire space is taken up with jokes about shi*ting – patrons could order wine while reading the walls.Known
Ancient Roman “Room of the Seven Sages” Read More »
Conspiracy theories abounded in Ancient Rome: court intrigues were constantly at play among the Senatorial aristocracy, since favoritism and personal alliances rather than a democratically based bureaucracy brought power. And thus we come to the sad end of Stilicho, the barbarian leader who served Rome in the waning days of the Western Empire.Stilicho was half-Vandal,
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