The Second

Brilliant minds chew on the great human questions: how should we find meaning? How should we order our lives together? What are the essential and real qualities of being human, and what does that imply for what we do?   And, although answers vary, one dominant, modern idea informs most of the modern answers: Human beings emerged through time on a continuum with everything else, from non-life to life, from non-consciousness to consciousness, from practical survival behaviors to morality, from awareness to self-awareness, from awe to religion, from irrational to rational.   In short, to say that man evolved from the lower animals is to say something mundane, like saying the earth is round. This now commonplace theory of origins has found renewed energy in the teachings of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, whose essential message is that of acquiring virtue.   Unlike traditional treatments—ancient wisdom, religious teaching and practice—Peterson’s is grounded in a remarkably broad...

Efficiency.  That is an important word in our times.  You can’t avoid it.  Surely you have heard about “Cyber Monday”.  Where “Black Friday” had become a byword of a consumerist culture, “Cyber Monday” is a byword of the now culture, which is consumerism on steroids!  Further convenience is not merely a want but an expectation, an assumed reality.  But convenience comes at a price, which is paid in the efforts for efficiency.  What are examples of these efforts, and what the price? To be efficient, one must always be concerned about time and the quantity of production.  So Cyber Monday is by far an improvement on Black Friday if for no other reason than a greater mass of goods can be purchased in a shorter amount of time.  But the conservation of time, as a concept, as an instinct, shows up in unexpected ways.  When the hourly who reports to you has an issue and grabs  your attention as you’re passing through, do you stop and give...