The murders of the U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by their Islamist captors were trivial horrors in the spiraling calamity that has engulfed Syria and Iraq. Still, to me they were uniquely painful for reasons unrelated to the region’s incomparably greater misfortunes: They were the needless deaths of brave and committed professionals, they pointed … Continue reading »
morality
What Our Words Don’t Tell Us
New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks maintains his conservative credentials by offering readers distillations of recent social science research that suggest that Americans are falling into one or another liberal-based malaise. His column of May 21, “What Our Words Tell Us,” is a case in point. Brooks’ charm, style, and ability to grapple with … Continue reading »
The past year’s top 10 scientific insights about living a meaningful life
The science we cover on the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center website — aka, “the science of a meaningful life” — has exploded over the past 10 years, with many more studies published each year on gratitude, mindfulness, and our other core themes than we saw a decade ago. 2012 was no exception. In … Continue reading »