Maps of Meaning, discussion – Part 5a, Culture and Cultural Personality

Peterson has continued to repeat the way in which he finds the ‘Judeochristian story’ to be relevant or useful, even if he hasn’t yet found a way to justify that it is ‘true’. In the general context of this blog, it’s interesting that Peterson hasn’t tasked himself with defending the claim that any religion is…

Comfortable Media will Kill Real Journalism

Comfortable media is that media which is easy to write, because it’s general conclusion is pre-agreed: it’s the incendiary, the extreme, the media where the author would claim to know the motives and deep ideology of an entire group better than anyone. As a result, “comfortable media” is also the media that is easy to…

“All religions are true, in that the metaphor is true”?

When responding to Stephen Fry’s prose on a “stupid God”, Russell Brand shared a quote that pops in and out of the public consciousness: all religions are true, in that the metaphor is true. The actual quote is “Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it…

Humanist Weddings, Equality and Aggression

This morning Facebook directed me towards a clip from 'The Big Questions', a BBC series that runs in the UK. They tackle three questions in an episode and the Big Question the clip is of is this: "Should humanists have equal rights to religions?" To be honest, the question made me laugh. I've long believed…

Dawkins is Wrong: Religion is not a Delusion

The other day I was talking with my flatmate. She was a psychiatrist and the discussion moved to how psychological conditions and symptoms are entirely culturally and contextually dependent. Your behaviour must be inappropriate for your culture for it to be relevant to psychology. But this does not sit well with Dawkins’ definition of a…

Why Do Women Wear Make-Up?

Women, generally, wear make-up. Men, generally, do not. I’m not opening with a ground breaking observation, am I? There is an argument that this is the case because men have decided women should be judged on their appearance and thus when women wear make-up they are conforming to their own subjugation. There may be a…

Only Boring People Get Bored

I get bored. I have been bored. But I think I have gotten to the bottom of what bores me. By now, regular readers will know I believe quite strongly in the value of distinguishing the external and celestial universe filled with things and with truth from the internal, mental universe filled with feelings, emotions…

An Atheist loves Christmas

In my last post I explained why I don’t like New Year’s Eve: my friends want me to do things I don’t like, I have no sentimental relationship with the idea of New Year and my absolute closest friends prove themselves to be “monumentally selfish”. But I also said that I do have a sentimental…