Essays
We are living in a time of upheaval, as A.I. – and other overlapping crises – are rapidly changing how we work, how we think, and how we learn. One thing we scholars like to do in times of upheaval is to turn to thinkers from other time for insights on our own. So, for…
Read Full Article...A Humanist Perspective on the Causes, Reasonings and Consequences of the Israeli-Palestinian War
Introduction Wars always cause human suffering, even when they are justified. Although suffering is not measurable, it is possible to qualify it as an illegitimate endeavor. Therefore, wars are substantially immoral. If this is the case, one should ask why human beings resort to war and violence, causing much suffering. Many philosophers, historians, and social…
Read Full Article...Lying has always been part of politics. Traditionally, however, the lie was seen as a necessary evil that those in power should keep from their subjects. Even totalitarians tried to hide the brutal truths on which their regimes rested. This disparity gave critics and reformers their sense of purpose: to illuminate for citizens the difference…
Read Full Article...I There has been nearly unanimous consensus among Iraqis that a new age of possible progress and prosperity has dawned upon their battered and war-fatigued country with the downfall of Saddam Hussein on April 9th. However, much had tainted this rosy image, and much more could still mar the outcome. A principal factor has been…
Read Full Article...A fundamental question: “Are we, Israelis, still Jews?”, asked the philosopher Ernest Simon in 1953.[1] What looks like a provocative question, was indeed a descriptive statement. He concluded that the establishment of the Jewish state sharply imposes on Israeli Jews a new type of religion in which the state enjoys total rule over religious institutions.…
Read Full Article...No one in Iraq or the U.S. believes that the primary intention of U.S. military action in Iraq was liberation. Yet, citizens of both nations need to unite to make it happen—Iraqis as an opportunity to avoid neo-colonization and achieve some form of just and democratic self-rule and the U.S. as reparations for a misguided…
Read Full Article...For the past four decades the labor movement in the United States has been somnolent. Ever since the administration of Ronald Reagan broke the Professional Air Traffic Controllers’ (PATCO) strike in 1981 organized labor has staggered from defeat to defeat. Its most effective weapon, the strike, atrophied. Too often when unions chose to strike, usually…
Read Full Article...Who are they, the Palestinians, and who has the right to speak for them? Oppressed nationalities find it difficult to get a hearing because those who pretend to represent them are often political adventurers who merely exploit them—whether for other powers’ imperialistic purposes or to vent on imaginary enemies their own hatred of the world.…
Read Full Article...Our Present Context My research and analysis of the backlash against LGBTQ+ and trans inclusion since the Obergefell decision of 2015 legalized same-sex marriage, has convinced me that trans and gender non-binary persons exist as a newly created national political scapegoat of the far right. This isn’t to suggest that trans and gender non-binary persons,…
Read Full Article...In November 2002 an Iranian professor of history, Hashim Aghajari, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, was sentenced to death by the Islamic revolutionary court in Hamadan among other counts for questioning the practice of blind “emulating/following” (taqlid) of the mujtahids in matters of belief and practice. His sentencing led to several days of widespread…
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Latest Issue
2025: Vol. 24, No. 1-2
Latest Issue
2025: Vol. 24, No. 1-2
Between The Issues
