Essays by Larry Barnett
Of the elements of the Industrial Revolution (1760-1830), the development of interchangeable parts was among its most significant. Not simply the efficiency of building machines was affected; workers were reduced to interchangeable parts, too, which greatly enabled the growth of capitalism.… Read the rest
“Escape From Freedom” is a 1941 book by the psychiatrist Erich Fromm. If I’d read it twenty years ago, I’d have found it an interesting account of authoritarianism and the rise of Fascism in Germany. Having read it recently, I found it pertinent and alarming.
Fromm’s psychological analysis includes… Read the rest
As the Bible tells it, humanity’s original sin was eating forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, thus generating awareness of good and evil. Essentially, this story is about the emergence of self-conscious free will and how it represents a separation from God. Accordingly, the story goes, God… Read the rest
We generally divide reality into two orders: natural and human. Natural order is the reality which is beyond human origination and control: the patterns of the flow of seasons, dawn and sunset, tides, gravity, the myriad forms of plant and animal life that populate the earth, the arrangement of atoms,… Read the rest
Why are we so war-like, or more honestly, why are men so war-like? War-like behavior among wild chimpanzees is a documented fact. Naturalist Jane Goodall observed that when a group of chimpanzees breaks off from a larger troop, the two alpha-male groups get into conflict. Males, and some females, make… Read the rest
Having moved from the unconscious existence of pre-human animal life governed by biological drives and hereditary instinct, we find ourselves faced with power and the freedom of choice in how we rule our lives, both individually and collectively. Ruling ourselves is an inescapable human predicament… Read the rest
I find the behavior of Matt Gaetz, Marjory Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Kevin McCarthy reprehensible; I hate it. These four MAGATS and many other so-called republicans are pursuing policies and positions that damage our democracy; the only reason I can see for how they behave is their love of power… Read the rest
Amateur botanist Joey Santore talks like a thug; think Tony Soprano going on about the leaf structure of Eupratorium serotinum. A Chicago native, Joey’s internet identity falls under the aegis of “Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t,” through which he posts videos of plants and his commentary. Affecting… Read the rest
Each of us is different and in other ways we are all the same. Sameness and difference are two sides of a coin; you can’t have one without the other. In our case, sameness and difference are the products of one billion years or more of ever-increasing animal complexity. At the present time, that complexity… Read the rest
While walking down a busy street the other day I felt reminded of leaf cutter ants. Leaf cutters leave their jungle nest each day and embark upon harvesting; climbing into the branches of shrubs and trees they systematically chop leaves apart and carry the bits and pieces back home. There the cut-up pieces… Read the rest
Our American culture famously celebrates freedom of expression. Freedom of speech is invoked as a catch-all justification for the most hateful of sentiments; the ACLU, defender of the First Amendment, has gone to court to protect the right of Nazi’s to march publicly while displaying swastikas and… Read the rest
Those who refer to MAGA Republicans are mistaken. MAGA is not Republican. MAGA is right-wing anarchy. Historically, anarchists have been associated with the political left-wing; indeed, there are avowed left-wing anarchists. However, the left- and right-wing meet at their extremes, and both … Read the rest
The word “woke” is getting lots of airtime these days. The GOP uses it derisively as an insult, indicating that woke is synonymous with leftist attitudes and beliefs about family, religion, patriotism, gender, and politics. In other words, that woke means liberal, and liberal means celebrating difference,… Read the rest
While headed to our town’s historic one-screen movie house the Sebastiani Theatre to see Barbie, in walking meditation I purposefully inhabited the mystery of multiple selves: my biological self whose feet touch the ground, my imaginary self as an idea, and my quantum self as a waveform traveling … Read the rest
My wife and I just went to the movie Oppenheimer, about J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb.” It’s well worth seeing, but prompted me to write about the other Oppenheimer, Robert’s brother Frank.
I met Frank Oppenheimer in the mid-seventies. He interviewed me for a job at the Exploratorium… Read the rest
According to the Big Bang theory, before the “bang” our universe was an infinitesimally small, non-dimensional singularity, a monad of the most basic and original substance or what the spiritually inclined call The Demiurge, The One or The Divine. From that perfect symmetry of wholeness emerged … Read the rest
In a recent essay about how consumerism is ecocide, I introduced the topic of “enough,” that unless humanity can stem its seemingly insatiable desire for more, we’re doomed. In response, a reader asked me to explore “enough,” what it is, who gets it, and who decides? Answering these questions necessitates… Read the rest
Are you a Stoic or an Epicurean? Maybe you’re a Cynic, or a combination of all three. However you think of yourself, it’s likely that you hew to one philosophy or another, even if you know next to nothing about any of them.
The origins of western thought are rooted in the philosophy of Ancient Greece. In the… Read the rest
As per usual, we’re rushing into adopting new technologies without considering the true costs or ramifications. The explicit order, that which is intended and achieved, masks the presence of the implicit order, that which is unintended and remains hidden for a while. In the case of new green energy… Read the rest
Is today’s anti-woke movement just a continuation of the anti-hippie movement that began in the 1960s? At that time, the collision between Flower Power and Pentagon Power split America into two cultural camps that have been at odds with each other ever since.
The divisions in our nation were clearly… Read the rest