Tag Archives: Gilgamesh

Why Return to the Greek Myths

This project begins from a simple premise: human nature has not changed. The technologies surrounding us have transformed almost beyond recognition, but the underlying motives that drive human action remain stubbornly familiar. Ambition, envy, loyalty, desire, the longing for recognition, the dread of mortality: these appear in every age, already fully visible in the earliestContinue reading “Why Return to the Greek Myths”

Better Angels

Uncle Jim pointed to a recent article in Science discussing Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011). I gave the book a quick read and found it a simple gloss on the benefits of global integration; hopeful homilies of an academician sheltered from the possibilities of violence. Pinker’s general thesis isContinue reading “Better Angels”