Daniel Sherwin, PhD

Tag: modernity

  • Violence in a Complex World

    Violence clouds our minds; it makes our vision murky. Our hearts race, our muscles flex, and we get ready to do something. Depending on how close we are to it, we are either fascinated or horrified. Often both. All of this is normal; it’s an important survival instinct, harnessed these days mostly to sell movies.…

  • Have we taken friendship too far?

    Imagine a time before friendship. Imagine being a human being in a world where friendship didn’t play a major role. I think that time probably existed. Not that there was no friendship at all, of course; the bond between Enkidu and Gilgamesh is at the heart of the oldest story we have from ancient Mesopotamia.…

  • The Transcendent (Religious?) Aspects of Feminist Discourse

    I’ve been reluctant to write directly about feminism, because I am not expert, it is politically charged and subject to fierce internet debate, and I don’t think that what the world needs right now is another white man offering his two cents about feminism. However, I’ve decided to go ahead anyway. I don’t think I can proceed in my characterization of…

  • Facebook has made us all Nietzcheans

    One of my favorite philosophers is Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche was an iconoclast, better known for tearing things down than for building them back up again. He famously declared that God is Dead. But he also targeted other important concepts for assault; one of them was the idea of a ‘self’. The self, like God, does…

  • Religious tradition: it’s everywhere

    In a debate on Facebook the other day, one of my political theorist friends argued that “tradition” – by which they meant especially religious tradition – must be considered one value among many, if indeed it is a value at all. In other words when making political judgements we must consider things like individuals freedom,…

  • Telemarketing Robots: How Technology Comes Between Us

    There was a neat piece in the Atlantic a little while ago about call centers using machines to semi-automate conversations. Rather than actually talking , the agent’s role is to select from a bank of pre-recorded statements, depending on the situation. They can also click the “laugh” button or the “exactly” button as required, in…

  • The Myth of the Independent Subject. featuring Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre

    One of the dominant myths of our time is that of the ‘independent subject’ (also known as the “transcendental ego,” the “Cartesian Subject” or the “true self”) . In short, this myth states that there is some “I” that exists, separate from ‘incidental’ features like my height, skin color, or family background, who makes choices…

  • Abstraction and Potato Chips

    I suggested in an earlier post that we live in an abstract society. There is perhaps no clearer indication of this than President’s Choice “Greek Feta and Olive” Potato Chips. Like, what the hell is that? Potato chips used to be potatoes. According to folklore, they were invented when a restaurant owner deliberately over-cooked and…

  • The Gods of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street

    We live in a shockingly abstract society. By that I mean, among other things, that many of the forces which shape our daily lives are so distant from us that we think of them as concepts or entities rather than actual people or processes. The “Economy”, “Society”, “Government,” are all examples of this. We all…

  • On the popular piety of modernity

    Lately, I have been fascinated by the idea of a popular piety. My engagements with religion tend to be extremely intellectual, and I privilege that kind of religiousity. But it occurs to me that complex theology is neither the most common nor the most important thing that religion does. The extraordinary accomplishment of the world’s…